crypt_r() issue when viewing HTTP auth page

[digitalpoint]

When viewing a page that is HTTP auth password protected, we sometimes get
an error 500 (internal server error), but 100% of the time, a browser reload
of the page makes it work the second time around.  The ngnix error log shows
this:

2012/12/19 15:50:43 [crit] 28799#0: *6224 crypt_r() failed (2: No such file
or directory), client: 108.199.xxx.xxx, server: dev.digitalpoint.com,
request: "GET /admin.php HTTP/1.1", host: "dev.digitalpoint.com", referrer:
"http://dev.digitalpoint.com/"

It makes me wonder if maybe nginx worker processes can never read the
auth_basic_user_file the first time it tries for some reason (but always can
after that first try)?  Like I mentioned, it will work properly 100% of the
time on a browser reload.

relevant part of nginx conf:

        location /admin.php {
                auth_basic                    Restricted;
                auth_basic_user_file    /etc/nginx/.passwd;
        <...clipped...>
        }

/etc/nginx/.passwd exists and I assume everything is okay with it since
everything works as expected on browser reload.

Anyone know how to fix this?

Posted at Nginx Forum: http://forum.nginx.org/read.php?2,234214,234214#msg-234214