stat(), NFS shares and local files timeout

I am running with an issue with remote filesystems (mounted via NFS) and PHP's stat() / filemtime(). Sometimes when the remote filesystem (NFS share) is busy, my PHP daemon just hangs forever on a filemtime() call to a file inside this FS. I failed to find a proper way of setting a timeout for that kind of operation. Everything I can think of is related to remote files (URLs) and/or content operations (read/write). Streams for example, don't even have any options for "local" files and "default_socket_timeout" directive is applicable only for sockets. I could fork my daemon just to do a stat() call and control the running time (timeout) inside the parent process, but I usually stat 60 files / second, so that would be a lot of forking. I prefer to go another way. anyone has a clue ? PS: I appreciate if replies go CC'ed to me Best, ~IF.