fsockopen failing

[nine_D]

I've been running a script that connects to Paypal using the fsockopen command for about a week, successfully. Yesterday, it quit working. The error occurs when the fsockopen command is executed. I echoed the error and got a 0, which php.net says means the error occured before the connect() call and is most likely due to a problem initializing the socket.
I don't know what that means.
I'm on a shared server. Can anyone help at all? Thanks.

[raf]

What sort of reply would you like to receive, based on that information?

[nine_D]

I'd like to know what it means if the socket failed to open and possible reasons why it would do so. Is that cool with you?