Excellent observation, but as I continue troubleshooting today, I think the problem is actually the opposite. I'm having script problems because the external process is being killed! I have never used fork before, but it seems that what is happening here is that when the external program dies, that child process stays alive and becomes in effect a new copy of my infinite-loop script. I ran for an hour this morning on a pingable IP, no problems. When I switch to a non-pingable IP (while keeping the script running) I suddenly see two log entries changing the .ini file... I switch back, and there are 4.... So everytime I kill the running .exe, I double my number of running perl scripts? Wow. I "fixed" this by adding a "die" command immediately after the "system" command (to get the child to die) but this has a nasty effect of getting "SPOOLSV.EXE" to suck up 99% of my CPU. So I'm guessing there's a better way to kill my children. I need to find out how.

--
Believe nothing, no matter where you read it, or who said it - even if I have said it - unless it agrees with your own reason and your own common sense.
(Buddha)

In reply to Re^2: Extremely odd behavior with net::ping and fork by wolfger
in thread Extremely odd behavior with net::ping and fork by wolfger

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