Hi!

# date; ps ax | grep Z | wc
Sun Jul 15 19:00:29 GMT 2007
    371    2227   16523

# ps -ef ax | grep perl | grep Z
root      9072     1  0 18:58 pts/1    Z      0:00 [perl] <defunct>
root      9094     1  0 18:59 pts/1    Z      0:00 [perl] <defunct>
root      9183     1  0 18:59 pts/1    Z      0:00 [perl] <defunct>
root      9192     1  0 18:59 pts/1    Z      0:00 [perl] <defunct>
root      9261     1  0 18:59 pts/1    Z      0:00 [perl] <defunct>
root      9267     1  0 18:59 pts/1    Z      0:00 [perl] <defunct>
root      9273     1  0 18:59 pts/1    Z      0:00 [perl] <defunct>

# perl -e 'fork && exit; sleep 1; print "$$ done\n"'
# 9392 done

# date; ps ax | grep Z | wc
Sun Jul 15 19:01:12 GMT 2007
    372    2233   16567

# ps -ef ax | grep perl | grep Z
root      9072     1  0 18:58 pts/1    Z      0:00 [perl] <defunct>
root      9094     1  0 18:59 pts/1    Z      0:00 [perl] <defunct>
root      9183     1  0 18:59 pts/1    Z      0:00 [perl] <defunct>
root      9192     1  0 18:59 pts/1    Z      0:00 [perl] <defunct>
root      9261     1  0 18:59 pts/1    Z      0:00 [perl] <defunct>
root      9267     1  0 18:59 pts/1    Z      0:00 [perl] <defunct>
root      9273     1  0 18:59 pts/1    Z      0:00 [perl] <defunct>
root      9392     1  0 19:01 pts/1    Z      0:00 [perl] <defunct>

Can anybody help me debug this issue?
I've attached tar file with contents of /proc/9392/, maybe this helps.

-- 
			WBR, Alex.