$terminal->send("sys hard\r\n");
[download]

i.e. sending CRLF? The script looks ok, and re-opening filehandles is ok too. It must not be Expect's fault if there's nothing to read from the socket; if nothing was sent, that's perfectly ok. I guess the remote shell doesn't grok the input is terminated, so I'd play with various setings of CRLF translations.

HTH,
--shmem

_($_=" "x(1<<5)."?\n".q·/)Oo.  G°\        /
                              /\_¯/(q    /
----------------------------  \__(m.====·.(_("always off the crowd"))."·
");sub _{s./.($e="'Itrs `mnsgdq Gdbj O`qkdq")=~y/"-y/#-z/;$e.e && print}