If you're running Linux, it's possible that your system is overcommitted and low on memory and the kernel is picking random processes to kill. There should be entries in the syslogs related to this, if that's what's happening. There are ways to tell (some versions of) Linux not to overcommit memory.
Cheers Doug, that's exactly what it was. That explains a lot of mysterious process deaths recently.
Thanks heaps -- David Mitchell Software Engineer Telogis ---------------------------(end of broadcast)--------------------------- TIP 2: you can get off all lists at once with the unregister command (send "unregister YourEmailAddressHere" to majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx)