I had the same problem just recently. This is how I resolved it.

sub socketListen
{
    my $client = shift;            # specific client connection execut
+ed in this thread
    my $server = shift;
    my $server_port = shift;    # port number of currently connected s
+ocket
    
    # data is ready to be received over the socket #
    $client->autoflush();
            
    print "connected to port: $server_port\n" if ( $debug == 1 );
    my @recData = ();
    my $numTries = 0;                          
    
    # set connection up for non-blocking read #
    my $true=1;    
    my $rec;    
    ioctl($client,  0x8004667e, \$true) or return -1;
    
    while ( $quitThread == 0 ) {        
        # try to read data  #
        $rec = undef;
        my $res = sysread($client, $rec, $bufferSize);
        
        if ( defined($res) ) {
            if ( $res == 0 ) {
                # socket was closed remotely #
                print "received nothing on socket $server_port.\n" if 
+( $debug == 1 );
                last;
            }    
            elsif ( $res > 0 ) {
                # received message #
                print "received on socket $server_port:$rec\n" if ( $d
+ebug == 1 );
            }
        }
        else {
            # no new information came through #
            print "sleeping: received nothing on socket $server_port.\
+n" if ( $debug == 1 );
            sleep 2;
            next;
        }
        
        
    }
    
    $client->close;
    print "closing socket $server_port...\n" if ( $debug == 1 );
}
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This was the body of a sub routine I called whenever my selector could do a "can_read" on the connection. You may want to use the "numTries" to have the connection timeout if nothing comes through over a certain time period.