I'm using zope 2.4.3 on linux (redhat 7 with kernel 2.4.14), playing around with the Photo product (nice one!). I've had a few zope freezes, and finally found a pattern: Occasionally, if using ImageMagick to do the rendering for Photo, convert will fail to complete and Zope will then become completely unresponsive. Browser requests do nothing. This is weird. I can understand how one of the Zope threads might get stuck waiting for the never-ending external process; but why should Zope become completely unresponsive? Shouldn't the other threads keep responding? And is there a way to set a timeout for an external process, such that zope can recover if it fails to return for too long? Here's output of ps showing the defunct convert process: (snip) 891 pts/0 S 0:00 python2.1 /home/pw/Downloads/Zope/z2.py -M /home/pw/C 896 pts/0 S 0:09 \_ /usr/local/bin/python2.1 /home/pw/Downloads/Zope/ 919 pts/0 S 0:00 \_ /usr/local/bin/python2.1 /home/pw/Downloads/Z 920 pts/0 S 0:29 \_ /usr/local/bin/python2.1 /home/pw/Downloa 1001 pts/0 Z 0:00 | \_ [convert <defunct>] 921 pts/0 S 0:05 \_ /usr/local/bin/python2.1 /home/pw/Downloa 922 pts/0 S 0:00 \_ /usr/local/bin/python2.1 /home/pw/Downloa 923 pts/0 S 0:00 \_ /usr/local/bin/python2.1 /home/pw/Downloa I can then get zope to restart by killing any of the zope PIDs. Here's the big M log leading up to the freeze - nothing unusual:... requestprofiler.py doesn't show any hangs in this log... $ tail -f bigM E 147423764 2001-11-15T17:36:05 B 143413564 2001-11-15T17:36:16 GET /test_crap/my_image_library/nothing I 143413564 2001-11-15T17:36:16 0 A 143413564 2001-11-15T17:36:16 500 2485 E 143413564 2001-11-15T17:36:16 B 147432596 2001-11-15T17:36:25 GET /test_crap/my_image_library/lilaq-logo.jpg I 147432596 2001-11-15T17:36:25 0 A 147432596 2001-11-15T17:36:25 304 282 E 147432596 2001-11-15T17:36:25 -- paul winkler home: http://www.slinkp.com music: http://www.reacharms.com calendars: http://www.calendargalaxy.com