I run apache2 for a few virtual domains and if I attempt to reload the configs or to stop apache it seems to lock, websites cease to respond but the process doesn't shutdown. I have looked all over for some sort of logged error but I can't find one, It just dies.

If I manually kill all the processes it starts up just fine, but I suspect that this will get me into trouble in the long run. I have looked everywhere I can think for some sort of error or log trail to give me a clue but I can't find it , any ideas?

Does strace give any clues?
strace -p `pidof -s apache2`