TypeError: ssl() argument 1 must be _socket.socket, not _socketobject

[Huzaifa Tapal]

I am getting this error from python 2.3.5 when making secure socket 
connections from my mod_python based application.  It is very odd 
because we cannot replicate this in the development environment, only in 
production on a cluster of 2 debian boxes with Apache2 MPM Worker w/ Mod 
Python 3.13.

Does anybody have any ideas as to what could be causing this error?

Here is the full traceback:

   Traceback:    File 
"/home/orderform/www/cgi-bin/OrderForm_bundle/hwmodules/register/dp_registrar/DPRegistrar.py", 
line 95, in _
_execCmd
       con.endheaders()
      File "/usr/lib/python2.3/httplib.py", line 715, in endheaders
       self._send_output()
      File "/usr/lib/python2.3/httplib.py", line 600, in _send_output
       self.send(msg)
      File "/usr/lib/python2.3/httplib.py", line 567, in send
       self.connect()
      File "/usr/lib/python2.3/httplib.py", line 988, in connect
       ssl = socket.ssl(sock, self.key_file, self.cert_file)
      File "/usr/lib/python2.3/socket.py", line 73, in ssl
       return _realssl(sock, keyfile, certfile)
   TypeError: ssl() argument 1 must be _socket.socket, not _socketobject

The thing is that if we restart the web server, it works fine for about 
20 minutes after which we start getting these errors.

Any help would be appreciated.

Hozi