[kovidgoyal]

Most likely that's because something in your environment is different each time. Check the environment variables, check that the directory containing the pid file exists and so on. And if --daemonize is causing a core dump on your server, it points to something fairly serious being messed up, as all --daemonize does is this,

def daemonize(stdin='/dev/null', stdout='/dev/null', stderr='/dev/null'):
    try:
        pid = os.fork()
        if pid > 0:
            # exit first parent
            sys.exit(0)
    except OSError as e:
        print >>sys.stderr, "fork #1 failed: %d (%s)" % (e.errno, e.strerror)
        sys.exit(1)

    # decouple from parent environment
    os.chdir("/")
    os.setsid()
    os.umask(0)

    # do second fork
    try:
        pid = os.fork()
        if pid > 0:
            # exit from second parent
            sys.exit(0)
    except OSError as e:
        print >>sys.stderr, "fork #2 failed: %d (%s)" % (e.errno, e.strerror)
        sys.exit(1)

    # Redirect standard file descriptors.
    si = file(stdin, 'r')
    so = file(stdout, 'a+')
    se = file(stderr, 'a+', 0)
    os.dup2(si.fileno(), sys.stdin.fileno())
    os.dup2(so.fileno(), sys.stdout.fileno())
    os.dup2(se.fileno(), sys.stderr.fileno())

where i dont see any potential for SIGABRT unless some system call is failing.