Satellite 5.4.1 unresponsive after cloning a channel

I am using the satellite API to clone a channel. The Channel clones fine, but satellite becomes unresponsive and throws 500 errors. What I have found is restarting tomcat 6 resolves the problem, so it looks like it a problem with the ajp connection between apache and tomcat. The only error I can find is in the apache log file:

[Tue Mar 11 11:48:50 2014] [error] (70007)The timeout specified has expired: ajp_ilink_receive() can't receive header
[Tue Mar 11 12:44:19 2014] [error] (70007)The timeout specified has expired: ajp_ilink_receive() can't receive header
[Tue Mar 11 12:45:03 2014] [error] (70007)The timeout specified has expired: ajp_ilink_receive() can't receive header

Has anyone else experienced this? Any ideas on how to correct the problem?