Unfortunately, I didn't read that thread until now and updated all of our machines to kernel 2.4.21-238 yesterday and hit the mysql problem already discussed on the weekend. Since then the thread has been quiet. So, is Suse working on a fix for this? After all, mysqld processes maxing out is a *serious* problem, the systems are effectively DoSing themselves. I urge Suse to issue a new announcement that warns about this problem, so vendors are warned and can consider halting on the upgrade. What I know so far is: - it seems all 2.4.21-238 (no matter, if Athlon, Intel or smp) on all newer Suse systems (we have 8.1 and 9.0 at the moment) are affected (maybe only 32bit, we don't have any 64bit). All systems run with latest standard Suse programs. - each time a mysql connection is closed that mysqld process goes <defunct> and stays forever until killed with "killall -9 mysqld", it's sufficient to "mysql -pxxx" and just quit, so it is surely not a problem of corrupted databases or specific programs - mysql-max does *not* seem to be affected - I have one system (Suse 9.0) with normal mysqld which doesn't seem to be affected. I don't know why. But all other 9.0 systems are affected. Kai -- Kai Schätzl, Berlin, Germany Get your web at Conactive Internet Services: http://www.conactive.com IE-Center: http://ie5.de & http://msie.winware.org