What OS/Webserver/Perl?
AFAIK unix, perl 5.6.1. I'd have to investigate further to find out
Each execution reads and writes to the 13 databases (DB_File) so I've set it up to use a lockfile to prevent ANY access to the DB's unless the lock is granted.
"Do stuff" is anything from adding events to the agenda, address book, adding content to the sites. etc
If there were a set of calls to one of the programs that constantly take longer then it would be easy to trace. Unfortunately what one person receives in .5 seconds, another receives in 17 seconds, and then only sometimes. I can't replicate the exact conditions except for pure cgi input over my adsl connection.

"It probably doesn't." ... buffer the output is interesting. Is there anyway of doing this? Should I prepare my HTML content ready for output, release lock for further executions and then print the HTML (since there would be no further DB access)?
Thanks for your help.