In the case of a "errno.ECHILD" exception - Python's subprocess module misses the fact that the process has already ended. The following code will wait indefinitely, even though the launched process is quickly ended: import subprocess, signal signal.signal(signal.SIGCLD, signal.SIG_IGN) p = subprocess.Popen(['echo','foo']) while p.poll() is None: pass # wait for the process to exit Note: This is the exact same issue as issue1731717, but applying to the subprocess.poll() method instead of the subprocess.wait() method.