asterisk users - Jun 2008 - Asterisk Manager Telnet Times Out?

I use the Asterisk Manager API by telneting into localhost:5038 then
issuing action directives (usually inside a script). The telnet
connection connects in a few milliseconds, and usually the Action: Login
(and other Actions, including arbitrary valid Asterisk commands like
"show channels") take well under a second to complete. But sometime in
the last few days the Message doesn't return for closer to 20-30
seconds, but it does return properly. I haven't changed anything else on
the machine since it was working, practically nothing except Asterisk
and its dependencies are running (not even any calls), CPU load is about
user: 0.001%; kernel: 0.02%; io: 0.004%; idle: 99.97% . What could make
the Manager take so long to turn around actions all of a sudden?

	I'm using Asterisk 1.2 on Debian 4.0 on a P4/3.2GHz/2GB on which about
1.95GB is free and there's no swapping or any other evident thrashing. I
have restarted the machine, and the Manager performance isn't changing.
-- 

(C) Matthew Rubenstein