I run Fedora core 2 and use an external US Robotics 56K modem. The problem I'm facing is that at times the modem locks and does not dial until I manually kill the process. This is my process listing:

26037 ttyS0 S 0:00 pppd lock modem crtscts asyncmap 00000000 defaultrout
26058 ? Z 0:00 [ifup-ppp] <defunct>
26060 ttyS0 S 0:00 /usr/bin/wvdial --remotename ppp0 --chat ppp0

After I kill the two processes, I am able to have the model dial again. What could possibly be causing this error? As a temprary measure, is there a way I can automate the killing of the processes? I use automated dialing using cron and when it locks, this does not work until I manually remove the processes