my $url = "http://wfmu.org/listen.m3u?show=21788&archive=32709"; use LWP::Simple; print "getting $url ...\n"; my $content = LWP::Simple::get($url); die "Problem!" unless defined $content; print "content: $content\n"; use POE qw(Component::RSSAggregator); # bad line __END__ With "bad line" commented out, it works: F:\cgi\wfmu>perl testget.pl getting "http://wfmu.org/listen.m3u?show=21788&archive=32709" content: http://archive.wfmu.org:5555/archive/NU/nu070117.mp3 With "bad line" present, it hangs: F:\cgi\wfmu>perl testget.pl getting "http://wfmu.org/listen.m3u?show=21788&archive=32709"