Tried with 1.2.8 with --enable-threads (we've always used this on the 1.2.6 instances, both on amd64 + i386) and got an identical backtrace.
I then recompiled without --enable-threads and got this backtrace: Starting program: /usr/bin/memcached -m 3200 -p 11211 -u nobody -c 4096 -t 10 [Thread debugging using libthread_db enabled] [New Thread 0xb7db76b0 (LWP 24582)] [New Thread 0xb7d55b90 (LWP 24585)] [New Thread 0xb7554b90 (LWP 24586)] [New Thread 0xb6d53b90 (LWP 24587)] [New Thread 0xb6552b90 (LWP 24588)] [New Thread 0xb5d51b90 (LWP 24589)] [New Thread 0xb5550b90 (LWP 24590)] [New Thread 0xb4d4fb90 (LWP 24591)] [New Thread 0xb454eb90 (LWP 24592)] [New Thread 0xb3d4db90 (LWP 24593)] [New Thread 0xb354cb90 (LWP 24594)] calloc() calloc() calloc() calloc() Program received signal SIGSEGV, Segmentation fault. [Switching to Thread 0xb354cb90 (LWP 24594)] 0x0804a061 in add_iov (c=0x8b646f8, buf=0x8c19588, len=44) at memcached.c:683 683 memcached.c: No such file or directory. in memcached.c (gdb) bt #0 0x0804a061 in add_iov (c=0x8b646f8, buf=Cannot access memory at address 0xb354c224 ) at memcached.c:683 Cannot access memory at address 0xb354c23c (gdb) I don't understand the memory error - memcache15:~# cat /proc/meminfo MemTotal: 3310796 kB and the system's only using 50M with 50M cached, so enough headroom... gdh