I've spend a few hours on this with not much to show for it. Hopefully someone out there with better knowledge of Net::OpenSSH internals can help. This is really bizarre. The bit of code I'm having problems with is here:

# this line runs fine
$server->exec("sudo rm -r /directory/*"); # exec is wrapper for the Ne
+t::OpenSSH "system" method

# checks if directory exists. This line causes Net::OpenSSH to crap ou
+t in special circumstances.
my $value = $server->capture(qq#perl -e "print (-d '/directory/')"#);

# returns 1 because dir exists
print $value;
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Now, if I run the same commands above in a standalone environment outside of the script I'm having the problem with, it works as expected and I cannot reproduce. The problem only happens when I run the commands from a particular script I'm running and only when /directory is empty. If the directory has stuff in it, I have no issues at all. What's also extremely weird is if I put something like this: $server->exec("ls") after the sudo rm -r /directory/* line, the code chugs along whether /directory is empty or not. I'm at a loss as to what could be going on. I've tried printing the $server->ssh->error but the code craps out before I can read it.

If someone could point me in the right direction as to what is going on, I'd be extremely grateful. This is driving me nuts.