freesd boxes refusing scp and sftp?

[Jonathan Horne]

my freebsd boxes are refusing connections (or erroring them out, im not sure 
which it is at this time).  when i try to scp a file or make a sftp 
connection, this is what i get:

[jhorne at zeus ~]$ sftp tyche
Connecting to tyche...
Password:
Received message too long 538976288
[jhorne at zeus ~]$

i get something similar (yet equally aggravating!) when i scp too.  can 
someone point me in the right direction here?

thanks a bunch,
jonathan