Note that calling pcntl_signal_dispatch() from within a signal handler invoked by a previous pcntl_signal_dispatch() will not trigger handlers for any new pending signals. This means that if you write a CLI daemon which forks off child processes in response to a signal, then those child processes won't be able to respond to signals. This gave me a headache for a while as pcntl_signal_dispatch() doesn't raise any errors when this occurs. One solution is to set a flag within the signal handler and react upon it (by forking off the needed child processes) elsewhere in the parent process's main loop.