[TriLUG] SCP acting funny

[Brian A. Henning]

Hello all,
  I've recently encountered this problem in a few places, and was wondering
if anyone had some insight or could tell me where to look for the solution.

scp doesn't like me.  Here are a couple example scenarios involving my
personal RH7.3 box and another host.  For simplicity, we'll call mine "mine"
and the other "his."

Example 1:  his runs RH8.0, or possibly FC1 (I helped him upgrade, but I
forget whether this scenario occurred before or after the upgrade).  I am
physically at his.

his% scp me at mine:~/some_file_that_exists .
Password: ********
/etc/bashrc processed   # <-- that is an echo in my /etc/bashrc, put in to
help troubleshoot
                              some odd environment issues
his% _
(nothing happens--the file is not transferred...so I try:)
his% ssh me at mine
me at mine's password: ********
/etc/profile processed  # <-- also have this for the same reason as
mentioned above
/etc/bashrc processed   # <-- as mentioned above
A fortune (in my ~/.bashrc)
the uptime (likewise)
me at mine% scp some_file_that_exists me at his:~
me at his's password: ********
me at mine% _
(still nothing happens; the file is not transferred..  so I give up on scp
and put the file in my public_html directory and get it that way)

Example 2: his runs FC1.  I am physically at mine, ssh'd into his.

me at his% scp me at mine:~/some_file_that_exists .
me at mine's password: ********
/etc/bashrc processed
me at his% _
(nothing--no transfer occurs, so I try on mine:)
mine% scp some_file_that_exists me at his:~
me at his's password: ********
some_file_that_exists  100% |*****************************| 38980
00:00
mine% _
(and it works, but only when initiated from mine, as shown)

What causes this?  I tried an scp -v, and there's a ton of output, very
little of which indicates the problem that is actually occurring.  In fact,
comparing that to the same -v output of a successful transfer (the second
half of Example 2) only confuses me further, as it seems that the debug
output is the same..

Could it be the output from /etc/bashrc is somehow confusing the process?

Thanks in advance.

~Brian