I just checked quickly, and perlmonkscb uses $conn->set_handler('im_in', \&im_in); (and suchlike, of course). (I'd show my config handler, but I don't handle it.)

I think the specific problem is that getconn returns the active connection, and until you've start()ed, there is no active connection. OTOH, you /have/ done a newconn by then, so I could be wrong... I'm too lazy to take a better look right now.