pear packages will not install (at all)

I'm having a strange problem every time I try to install or upgrade a pear package it acts like I'm in an infinite loop. It downloads the packages fine but once it tries to install it, it gets stuck. I don't believe I have done anything unusual. shell>sudo pear -v upgrade mail downloading Mail-1.1.2.tgz ... Starting to download Mail-1.1.2.tgz (13,156 bytes) .....done: 13,156 bytes (it just sits here and the php process keeps getting larger and larger in memory until I kill the process) I have tried using the regular install and downloading the package first and then installing the package. Also in case it helps these should be all the relevant specs for my build. shell> pear -V PEAR Version: 1.3b3 PHP Version: 4.3.4 Zend Engine Version: 1.3.0 Running on: Darwin 154-93.dynamic.augsburg.edu 7.0.0 Darwin Kernel Version 7.0.0: Wed Sep 24 15:48:39 PDT 2003; root:xnu/xnu-517.obj~1/RELEASE_PPC Power Macintosh I'd be happy to supply any other relevant information. If anyone has any ideas as to what's going on and/or how to fix it I would be very grateful. -jachin