Failed to contact xxxx-1085, ellpack

Since we moved to Tiger (client) for hosting WO apps, I sometimes  
have trouble with JavaMonitor not being able to report the status of  
applications.

Rebooting sorts this out.

The message on the application detail page in JavaMonitor in red  
letters is "Failed to contact plug-1085" and no statistics are shown.

Yet the applications themselves all appear to be functioning correctly.

Each time JavaMonitor fails to get the info it needs, webobjects.log  
has the following line added to it:

[2005-10-03 13:23:39 BST] <WorkerThread7> <WOWorkerThread id=7  
socket=Socket[addr=/192.168.0.34,port=59254,localport=1085]>  
Exception while sending response: java.net.SocketException: Broken pipe

Running lsof -i tcp:2001-2050 gives many lines with something called  
ellpack in:

java      628 root  259u  IPv6 0x04d1d490      0t0  TCP plug:ellpack- 
 >plug:63305 (CLOSE_WAIT)
java      628 root  260u  IPv6 0x04d1d100      0t0  TCP plug:ellpack- 
 >plug:63318 (CLOSE_WAIT)
java      628 root  261u  IPv6 0x04d1c0f8      0t0  TCP plug:ellpack- 
 >plug:63333 (CLOSE_WAIT)
java      628 root  262u  IPv6 0x04d1bf30      0t0  TCP plug:ellpack- 
 >plug:63337 (CLOSE_WAIT)
java      628 root  263u  IPv6 0x04d1d9e8      0t0  TCP plug:ellpack- 
 >plug:63384 (CLOSE_WAIT)
...

and I am guessing from past experience that these are causing the  
problem.

What is this all about and how can it be prevented? I can't find  
information on this ellpack thing.

Thanks
John