Comment #4 on issue 154 by bananastalktome: pid file out of sync (created before socket binding)
http://code.google.com/p/memcached/issues/detail?id=154
With apache, for example, if I run httpd and start a daemon, then try to run it again, it errors out indicating "Address already in use: make_sock: could not bind to address 0.0.0.0:80 no listening sockets available, shutting down" but, in the process, does NOT override the pidfile. This is likely what the OP and myself are looking for with memcached as well.
