lib/PublicInbox/DS.pm    | 2 ++
 lib/PublicInbox/Inbox.pm | 2 +-

diff --git a/lib/PublicInbox/DS.pm b/lib/PublicInbox/DS.pm
index fe794512d50efae39c6c08e623eeb56519a85fb8..b441adc98b204d53cae1ed5ce99455940bdb9db5 100644
--- a/lib/PublicInbox/DS.pm
+++ b/lib/PublicInbox/DS.pm
@@ -255,6 +255,8 @@
 # reentrant SIGCHLD handler (since reap_pids is not reentrant)
 sub enqueue_reap ($) { push @$nextq, \&reap_pids };
 
+sub in_loop () { $in_loop }
+
 sub EpollEventLoop {
     local $in_loop = 1;
     do {
diff --git a/lib/PublicInbox/Inbox.pm b/lib/PublicInbox/Inbox.pm
index ff80096528eb2301aae63c9389dba01421051868..e834d565da62915267898ce1dd7537dbabc390c3 100644
--- a/lib/PublicInbox/Inbox.pm
+++ b/lib/PublicInbox/Inbox.pm
@@ -52,7 +52,7 @@
 sub cleanup_possible () {
 	# no need to require DS, here, if it were enabled another
 	# module would've require'd it, already
-	eval { $PublicInbox::DS::in_loop } or return 0;
+	eval { PublicInbox::DS::in_loop() } or return 0;
 
 	eval {
 		require Devel::Peek; # needs separate package in Fedora