Problems with "Unable to read from thread kernel pipe"

Hello. I'm currently running FreeBSD 5.2.1-RELEASE-p3 and I'm having 
problems with Apache2 / PHP4. For some reason Apache has started to cause 
some problems. The symptoms are that all the httpd-processes start to 
consume all the CPU-time and things slow down. If I then stop Apache I am 
left with some zombie httpd-processes.

In my httpd-error.log file I see the following:

[Mon Mar 29 13:33:04 2004] [notice] suEXEC mechanism enabled (wrapper: 
/usr/local/sbin/suexec)
[Mon Mar 29 13:33:07 2004] [notice] Apache/2.0.49 (Unix) PHP/4.3.5 
mod_ssl/2.0.49 OpenSSL/0.9.7c-p1 configured -- resuming normal operations
Fatal error 'Unable to read from thread kernel pipe' at line 1100 in file 
/usr/src/lib/libc_r/uthread/uthread_kern.c (errno = 0)
[Mon Mar 29 13:36:41 2004] [notice] child pid 85040 exit signal Abort trap 
(6)
Fatal error 'Unable to read from thread kernel pipe' at line 1100 in file 
/usr/src/lib/libc_r/uthread/uthread_kern.c (errno = 0)
[Mon Mar 29 13:37:18 2004] [notice] child pid 85042 exit signal Abort trap 
(6)


This seems to point back to something in the base system, right?
I've searched for the text "Unable to read from thread kernel pipe" and 
haven't found any solutions, but I've found the PR 63670 which has been 
reported regarding Gtk2-Perl + Perl 5.8.2

(Yes, I have Perl 5.8.2 installed here, I'll try to reinstall 5.6.x and see 
if this helps).


Here's some information regarding my system:

vimes# uname -a
FreeBSD vimes.eivind 5.2.1-RELEASE-p3 FreeBSD 5.2.1-RELEASE-p3 #0: Wed Mar 
17 23:55:35 CET 2004     root_at_vimes.eivind:/usr/obj/usr/src/sys/VIMES  i386
vimes#

(the VIMES-kernel here is GENERIC + ipfilter compiled into the kernel)

Here are the libraries /usr/local/sbin/httpd are linking against:

vimes# ldd httpd
httpd:
        libz.so.2 => /lib/libz.so.2 (0x280c0000)
        libssl.so.3 => /usr/lib/libssl.so.3 (0x280ce000)
        libcrypto.so.3 => /lib/libcrypto.so.3 (0x28100000)
        libaprutil-0.so.9 => /usr/local/lib/apache2/libaprutil-0.so.9 
(0x28210000)
        libexpat.so.5 => /usr/local/lib/libexpat.so.5 (0x28223000)
        libapr-0.so.9 => /usr/local/lib/apache2/libapr-0.so.9 (0x28243000)
        libm.so.2 => /lib/libm.so.2 (0x28260000)
        libcrypt.so.2 => /lib/libcrypt.so.2 (0x28279000)
        libc.so.5 => /lib/libc.so.5 (0x28292000)
vimes#


Does anyone have any suggestions?

-- 
Regards / Hilsen
Eivind Olsen
<eivind_at_aminor.no>