"unable to start subprocess"

[Kristoffer Walker]

Folks,

I have a shell script that has a loop in it.  Each iteration of the loop 
creates a temporary Octave script, then echos this script to an Octave 
shell.  I run this shell script in two separate terminal windows.  After 
some time of running fine, one or both windows (I don't remember if it 
was both) report this error:

error: unable to start subprocess for '/bin/date'
error: called from:
error:   /usr/share/octave/3.4.3/m/miscellaneous/unix.m at line 38, 
column 21

I am trying to understand the conditions that may cause execution of 
unix.m to fail.  There is 96 GB RAM on this large machine, and the 
specific job Octave is being asked to perform is no where near coming 
close to requiring that much RAM or a heavy amount of CPU power. 
However, the machine is a virtual machine, and there have been some odd 
observations lately with some binary system programs just hanging 
indefinitely for mysterious reasons.  Any insights into what could be 
causing this?  Is unix.m thread safe?

Thanks,
Kris

--
Kristoffer T. Walker
Assoc. Research Geophysicist
Scripps Institution of Oceanography
La Jolla, CA 92093-0225
http://sail.ucsd.edu/~walker
+1-858-534-0126 (work)