`egrep -f "$_proj_file" "$_running_file" > "$_admin_temp_file"`;
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Of course the question is why you use `...` instead of system(...), if you are not interested in the output of the egrep, but maybe egrep is writing something to stderr, and the way you code it, that stderr gets lost. I suggest you try

my $errmsg=`egrep -f "$_proj_file" "$_running_file" > "$_admin_temp_fi
+le"`;
print "egrep error: $errmsg\n" if $errmsg;
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