This is related to issue29, but it's not the same thing because the SSH
in question is a native build from http://sshwindows.sourceforge.net

I've had a chat with Aldekein (a patch-tag.com user on Windows) about
this due to some recent trouble he was having he was having with SSH
http://groups.google.com/group/patch-tag-users/browse_thread/thread/6fd28c25596297a2

We've established that
 - using Putty to convert a Putty-generated key to OpenSSH format
 - storing the key in
     c:\Documents and Settings\.ssh\id_rsa
   lets you make a connection

Now here's the infuriating thing.  Why do we get this hang?

> It runs c:\Program Files\OpenSSH\bin\ssh.exe as
> "ssh" "Aldekein@patch-tag.com" "darcs" "transfer-mode" "--repodir" "/r/myevil/"
> 
> And gets a silence...
> Not even Ctrl+с interruptable. I have to kill both processes.

(Now I'm not claiming that we should necessarily try to support OpenSSH, but we
 should at least make a conscious decision about it.  Maybe it'll make our
 lives easier since we then could consider making it the preferred SSH
 utility since our code was all written with OpenSSH in mind?  In my opinion,
 darcs should be pretty shameless about limiting the kinds of variables it
 has to contend with, as long as we can do so without imposing too great a
 burden on our users)

On Sat, Mar 28, 2009 at 05:08:49AM +0000, Eric Kow wrote:
>> It runs c:\Program Files\OpenSSH\bin\ssh.exe as
>> "ssh" "Aldekein@patch-tag.com" "darcs" "transfer-mode" "--repodir" "/r/myevil/"
>>
>> And gets a silence...
>> Not even Ctrl+с interruptable. I have to kill both processes.

Are there Windows analogues of strace and gdb that you can use to work
out what happens just before the hang?

What happens if you run that ssh command manually in a terminal?

Does "darcs put" have the same problem (it doesn't use transfer-mode)?

Can you "darcs get" the remote repo?

Salvatore: Could you advise on Trent's question:
> Are there Windows analogues of strace and gdb that you can use to work
> out what happens just before the hang?

Thanks :-)

Sure:
http://www.intellectualheaven.com/default.asp?BH=projects&H=strace.htm

On Mon, Aug 24, 2009 at 2:36 PM, Eric Kow<bugs@darcs.net> wrote:
>
> Eric Kow <kowey@darcs.net> added the comment:
>
> Salvatore: Could you advise on Trent's question:
>> Are there Windows analogues of strace and gdb that you can use to work
>> out what happens just before the hang?
>
> Thanks :-)
>
> ----------
> assignedto:  -> kirby
>
> __________________________________
> Darcs bug tracker <bugs@darcs.net>
> <http://bugs.darcs.net/issue1409>
> __________________________________
>

Aldekein: perhaps you could try the troubleshooting steps Trent suggested?
(partly quoting him from msg7548)

1. Could you try using the strace-style tool that Salvatore linked to?
2. What happens if you run that ssh command manually in a terminal?
3. Does "darcs put" have the same problem (it doesn't use transfer-mode)?
4. Can you "darcs get" the remote repo?