Matt test battery stuck

This addresses a problem hit by @matthewrmshin in his new job-status branch: 
 > I cannot get the test battery to work. Each time I run the test battery, a random suite or two will get stuck. It will give the following log output (snipped) after the 1st task, until it times out.
```
2013/02/04 14:44:55 DEBUG - UPDATING STATE SUMMARY
2013/02/04 14:44:56 DEBUG - UPDATING STATE SUMMARY
2013/02/04 14:44:57 DEBUG - UPDATING STATE SUMMARY
:
2013/02/04 14:45:39 DEBUG - UPDATING STATE SUMMARY
2013/02/04 14:45:40 DEBUG - UPDATING STATE SUMMARY
2013/02/04 14:45:41 DEBUG - UPDATING STATE SUMMARY