can't start new thread

[jdonnell]

I posted this about a month ago and peter asked for a stack trace. I
didn't get the error again until yesterday and here is the stack trace
and what I posted before.

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "./ab.py", line 240, in ?
    main()
  File "./ab.py", line 217, in main
    abThread.start()
  File "/usr/lib/python2.2/threading.py", line 396, in
start
    _start_new_thread(self.__bootstrap, ())
thread.error: can't start new thread


I'm at a loss on this one. I have a multithreaded script that gets
'thread.error: can't start new thread' errors randomly. I
just got it right after starting the script when it was trying to
create the 5th thread. Usually the script will run for a while before
throwing this error, but sometimes it throws it right away.

This script has worked without a problem for months, but I did make
some changes recently. I don't see how those changes would cause
this error though. It's also on a VPS so it's possible that they
changed something in the OS. Does anyone have any suggestions about
possible causes of this error?

I'm using Python 2.2.3 on a custom vps version of FC1.