[Dovecot] dovecot-auth defunct

Hi, I'm running dovecot-0.99.11-2.EL4.1 in RHEL4 and a couple of hours ago, I could not longer login in the imap or pop3 service.

I noted that I have a process like this: root 8130 0.0 0.0 0 0 ? Z 16:55 0:00 [dovecot-auth] <defunct>

It this ok to have a defunct proccess? I can not kill this process. I have to stop the dovecot service, killall pop3-login and imap-login and then start dovecot again.

Is there a solution for this? Any hint? I already enabbled the debug of dovecot-auth. I have my user accounts on a local LDAP using nss_ldap.

Many thanks Oliver

-- Oliver Schulze L. oliver@samera.com.py