[Zope] popen2 in External method causes Aiieee!

[Milos Prudek]

The following simple external method works fine in Python 2.1.3/Zope 
2.5.1 locally, but does not work for files larger than 4000 bytes in the 
exactly same software configuration on a remote server. The remote 
server has a lot of free memory and disk space.

def filetype(File=''):
    import os
    cmd='file -b -'
    w,r=os.popen2(cmd)
    w.write(File)
    w.close()
    return r.read().strip()

This External method is called as follows from a Python Script:

Ft = context.filetype(text[:20000])

The Aiieee! error message is:

2002-07-05T17:26:27 ERROR(200) zdaemon zdaemon: Fri Jul  5 10:26:27 
2002: Aiieee! 24523 exited with
error code: 13
------
2002-07-05T17:26:27 INFO(0) zdaemon zdaemon: Fri Jul  5 10:26:27 2002: 
Houston, we have forked
------
2002-07-05T17:26:27 INFO(0) zdaemon zdaemon: Fri Jul  5 10:26:27 2002: 
Houston, we have forked
------
2002-07-05T17:26:27 INFO(0) zdaemon zdaemon: Fri Jul  5 10:26:27 2002: 
Hi, I just forked off a kid:
24638

I am perfectly sure that it is the extrernal method that is causing it. 
When I removed the source code and put a simple "return 'GIF'" in the 
External method, problem disappeared.

Why would it work on a local machine and not work on a remote hosting 
server?

--
Milos Prudek