Description:
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I recieve the following error slightly less than half the time when I try to access any script on the server in question:

Fatal error: Allowed memory size of 8388608 bytes exhausted (tried to allocate x bytes) in Unknown on line 0

(note x is variable but usually around 100)

The only similarity I can note in the scripts that produce this error is most likely trivial: they all include lines that call fopen and fread, however the error can occur even when a script is run in such a way that control structures prevent the filesystem function lines from being reached. Furthermore, I have not tested with scripts that do not include filesystem functions. 

All the scripts in question ran fine under php < 5. By re-requesting any script several times I can usually get it to run. 

Since I can't track down the source of the error, I can't provide more detailed information...if there are specific questions about my configuration I will answer them. If someone smart thinks this could be an actual bug I might be coerced into reconfiguring --with-debug.

php.ini is the dist version. Configuration line is:
'--prefix=/usr/local/php' '--host=i386-redhat-linux' '--build=i386-redhat-linux' '--target=i386-redhat-linux-gnu' '--program-prefix=' '--prefix=/usr' '--exec-prefix=/usr' '--bindir=/usr/bin' '--sbindir=/usr/sbin' '--sysconfdir=/etc' '--datadir=/usr/share' '--includedir=/usr/include' '--libdir=/usr/lib' '--libexecdir=/usr/libexec' '--localstatedir=/var' '--sharedstatedir=/usr/com' '--mandir=/usr/share/man' '--infodir=/usr/share/info' '--cache-file=../config.cache' '--with-config-file-path=/etc' '--disable-debug' '--enable-pic' '--disable-rpath' '--enable-inline-optimization' '--with-curl' '--with-dom=/usr' '--with-exec-dir=/usr/bin' '--with-png-dir=/usr' '--with-gd' '--with-jpeg-dir=/usr/local/lib' '--enable-gd-native-ttf' '--with-ttf' '--with-gdbm' '--with-gettext' '--with-ncurses' '--with-gmp' '--with-iconv' '--with-openssl' '--with-png' '--with-regex=system' '--with-xml' '--with-expat-dir=/usr' '--with-zlib' '--with-layout=GNU' '--enable-bcmath' '--enable-exif' '--enable-ftp' '--enable-magic-quotes' '--enable-sockets' '--enable-sysvsem' '--enable-sysvshm' '--enable-discard-path' '--enable-track-vars' '--enable-trans-sid' '--enable-yp' '--enable-wddx' '--without-oci8' '--with-pear=/usr/share/pear' '--with-imap-ssl' '--with-kerberos=/usr/kerberos' '--with-ldap=shared' '--with-mysql=/usr' '--with-zip' '--enable-memory-limit' '--enable-bcmath' '--enable-shmop' '--enable-versioning' '--enable-calendar' '--enable-dio' '--enable-mcal' '--with-apxs2=/usr/local/apache2/bin/apxs'