apache-perl: missing handler server-parsed

["Philipp Letschert" <Philipp.Letschert@trw.com>]

I tried to include a perl counter in my webpage with the line:

<!--#exec cgi="/cgi-bin/counter.pl"-->

invoking the counter with http://foo.bar/cgi-bin/counter.pl works fine. But I didnt got it to work from within the document. After spending a lot of time with the Apache documentation I have the following .htaccess file in the web-directory:

SetHandler      server-parsed
Options            +Includes         +ExecCGI

I also uncommented the following lines in /etc/apache/srm.conf

AddType text/html  .shtml
AddHandler   server-parsed   .shtml

The .shtml file has the execute bit set, and I have a <Directory /mywebdir> section with   "AllowOverride  All"    in it.

The error in the error.log file says all the time: 
handler server-parsed not found for: /var/www/mywebdir/counter.shtml

Could this be a problem with the apache-perl server, or am I still missing something obvious ?

TIA, Phil