syslogd spinning the CPU, not logging...

[Mikhail T.]

On FreeBSD/amd64 8.2-STABLE as of Sun Feb 27. I dismissed this problem the first 
time (a week or two ago), but just saw it again. Something triggers syslogd into 
spinning all available CPU -- while not logging anything.

Attempts to log anything -- such as by invoking logger(1) -- simply hang. 
sendmail hangs too -- now new e-mail is coming. It is not pretty.

ktrace-ing the process yields empty file -- it is not doing system-calls, while 
spinning.

Attaching the debugger several times shows the same stack:

    #0  0x00000008007cb1d6 in _pthread_mutex_init_calloc_cb () from /lib/libc.so.7
    #1  0x00000008007cd9fb in _pthread_mutex_init_calloc_cb () from /lib/libc.so.7
    #2  0x00000008007d4825 in free () from /lib/libc.so.7
    #3  0x00000008007c5aab in catopen () from /lib/libc.so.7
    #4  0x00000008007c5410 in strerror_r () from /lib/libc.so.7
    #5  0x00000008007c556d in strerror () from /lib/libc.so.7
    #6  0x0000000000403c10 in ?? ()
    ...


Among the logging-destinations in my syslog.conf there is a program, that exits 
sometimes -- but never "too fast". Normally, syslogd simply restarts it without 
an issue...

Any ideas? Thanks!

    -mi