@@ -130,6 +131,10 @@ class BannerDaemon(BaseDaemon):

     def is_ready(self):
         try:
+            if psutil.Process(self.pid_file.pid).status() == psutil.STATUS_ZOMBIE:
+                message = 'bannerd process is dead, see {0}/bannerd.log for details'
+                message = message.format(self.working_dir)
+                raise BannerDaemonError(message)
             stats = self.client.get_stats()
             try:
                 return stats['common_stat']['ready']