Failed to bind to LDAP server - Can't contact LDAP server only on certain programs

I have this odd problem I've never been able to track down.  I use nss_ldap for passwd, shadow, and group and it works correctly nearly all the time.  I only have problems with one perl application which always triggers this.  The program in question is Smokeping.

perl: nss_ldap: failed to bind to LDAP server ldaps://x.x.x.x:636: Can't contact LDAP server
perl: nss_ldap: reconnecting to LDAP server (sleeping 8 seconds)...
perl: nss_ldap: failed to bind to LDAP server ldaps://x.x.x.x:636: Can't contact LDAP server
perl: nss_ldap: reconnecting to LDAP server (sleeping 16 seconds)...
perl: nss_ldap: failed to bind to LDAP server ldaps://x.x.x.x:636: Can't contact LDAP server
perl: nss_ldap: reconnecting to LDAP server (sleeping 32 seconds)...
perl: nss_ldap: failed to bind to LDAP server ldaps://x.x.x.x:636: Can't contact LDAP server
perl: nss_ldap: reconnecting to LDAP server (sleeping 64 seconds)...
perl: nss_ldap: failed to bind to LDAP server ldaps://x.x.x.x:636: Can't contact LDAP server
perl: nss_ldap: could not search LDAP server - Server is unavailable

Any suggestions on where to debug?  After the last timeout the application will finally work.

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Larry Low