I have had a working cpan for a quite a while on my debian (sarge) with perl v5.8.8. Today when I tried to install a new module I get this error. --------------------------- prompt function called without an argument at /usr/local/share/perl/5.8.8/ExtUtils/MakeMaker.pm line 138 ExtUtils::MakeMaker::prompt('undef') called at /usr/local/share/perl/5.8.8/CPAN.pm line 2638 CPAN::LWP::UserAgent::_get_username_and_password_from_user('\x{a}Authentication needed!\x{a} (Note: to permanently configure ...') called at /usr/local/share/perl/5.8.8/CPAN.pm line 2627 CPAN::LWP::UserAgent::get_non_proxy_credentials('CPAN::LWP::UserAgent=HASH(0xab36c14)') called at /usr/local/share/perl/5.8.8/CPAN.pm line 2588 CPAN::LWP::UserAgent::get_basic_credentials('CPAN::LWP::UserAgent=HASH(0xab36c14)', 'FTP login', 'URI::ftp=SCALAR(0xab957c4)', '') called at /usr/local/share/perl/5.8.8/LWP/Authen/Basic.pm line 11 LWP::Authen::Basic::authenticate('LWP::Authen::Basic', 'CPAN::LWP::UserAgent=HASH(0xab36c14)', '', 'HASH(0xae0fb6c)', 'HTTP::Response=HASH(0xae2789c)', 'HTTP::Request=HASH(0xac13648)', '/usr/local/.cpan/sources/authors/01mailrc.txt.gz-542', 'undef') called at /usr/local/share/perl/5.8.8/LWP/UserAgent.pm line 403 LWP::UserAgent::request('CPAN::LWP::UserAgent=HASH(0xab36c14)', 'HTTP::Request=HASH(0xac13648)', '/usr/local/.cpan/sources/authors/01mailrc.txt.gz-542') called at /usr/local/share/perl/5.8.8/LWP/UserAgent.pm line 682 LWP::UserAgent::mirror('CPAN::LWP::UserAgent=HASH(0xab36c14)', 'ftp://archive.progeny.com/CPAN/authors/01mailrc.txt.gz', '/usr/local/.cpan/sources/authors/01mailrc.txt.gz') called at /usr/local/share/perl/5.8.8/CPAN.pm line 2688 CPAN::LWP::UserAgent::mirror('CPAN::LWP::UserAgent=HASH(0xab36c14)', 'ftp://archive.progeny.com/CPAN/authors/01mailrc.txt.gz', '/usr/local/.cpan/sources/authors/01mailrc.txt.gz') called at /usr/local/share/perl/5.8.8/CPAN.pm line 3012 CPAN::FTP::hosteasy('CPAN::FTP', 'ARRAY(0x8666840)', 'authors/01mailrc.txt.gz', '/usr/local/.cpan/sources/authors/01mailrc.txt.gz') called at /usr/local/share/perl/5.8.8/CPAN.pm line 2915 CPAN::FTP::localize('CPAN::FTP', 'authors/01mailrc.txt.gz', '/usr/local/.cpan/sources/authors/01mailrc.txt.gz', 3) called at /usr/local/share/perl/5.8.8/CPAN.pm line 3737 CPAN::Index::reload_x('CPAN::Index', 'authors/01mailrc.txt.gz', 'authors/01mailrc.txt.gz', 'undef') called at /usr/local/share/perl/5.8.8/CPAN.pm line 3677 CPAN::Index::reload('CPAN::Index') called at /usr/local/share/perl/5.8.8/CPAN.pm line 664 CPAN::all_objects('CPAN=HASH(0x85a38c0)', 'CPAN::Module') called at /usr/local/share/perl/5.8.8/CPAN.pm line 2135 CPAN::Shell::expand_by_method('CPAN::Shell', 'CPAN::Module', 'ARRAY(0x88f0270)', '/./') called at /usr/local/share/perl/5.8.8/CPAN.pm line 2114 CPAN::Shell::expand('CPAN::Shell', 'Module', '/./') called at /usr/local/share/perl/5.8.8/CPAN.pm line 1819 CPAN::Shell::_u_r_common('CPAN::Shell', 'r') called at /usr/local/share/perl/5.8.8/CPAN.pm line 1929 CPAN::Shell::r('CPAN::Shell') called at /usr/local/share/perl/5.8.8/CPAN.pm line 1803 CPAN::Shell::upgrade('CPAN::Shell') called at /usr/local/share/perl/5.8.8/CPAN.pm line 231 eval {...} called at /usr/local/share/perl/5.8.8/CPAN.pm line 231 CPAN::shell() called at -e line 1 --------------------------------- can somebody give me a clue how to correct. thanks Virgil