Using perl dbi - program sperodically hangs on an execute statement ute statment

[William Miller]

If I run the same script multiple times, a run will eventually hang on an execute statement. The sever shows the client process (show processlist \G) at first, soon the process goes away but the program never moves again until killed. When I enable a trace the internal trace statement is always >parse_params statement ... ( followed by the text of the actual SQL ) ... I'd like to note that the program does not do a statement sth->finish and dbh->disconnect when it ends.
I do this purposely to recreate the problem which occurred in my larger program when it needs to either re-connect from a timeout or closes down less than elegant and is re-started. The above is to easily reproducible and makes the interaction with the server to seem unreliable and unstable ... Does anyone have a solution to fix this ?