Please eliminate aspects which are not relevant to your question. There's no reason for you to need more than 10 lines of data to demonstrate your problem.

While I didn't look into your problem, I couldn't help but notice two issues when I scrolled down.

• First, you seem to be running without warnings or else you'd get at least one:

  >perl -c -we"sub recur($) { recur('x') }"
  main::recur() called too early to check prototype at -e line 1.
  -e syntax OK
  [download]

  Granted, it's harmless since you shouldn't be using prototype there anyway, but who knows what else you are missing. Use use strict; use warnings;!

• Secondly, I spot instances of if (/.../g). What do you think that means? "If it matches, check if it matches again to make sure!"? Aside from not making any sense conceptually to use /g like this, it can be the cause of problems. (if (/.../gc) has uses, but that's not what we have here.)

So start by fixing the strictures, the warnings and the if (/.../g) constructs, then give us a manageable demonstration of your problem if it still exists.