kex_exchange_identification: write: Broken pipe' when trying to connect to Bitbucket

Question

I have successfully been connecting to Bitbucket cloud via my SSH key set up on my laptop for the past three years with no issue, but suddenly today I started seeing this error when trying to pull from remote branch:

kex_exchange_identification: write: Broken pipe fatal: Could not read from remote repository.

Please make sure you have the correct access rights and the repository exists.

I followed the instructions here: https://support.atlassian.com/bitbucket-cloud/docs/set-up-an-ssh-key/ for Mac OS (I am using Big Sur). So I deleted the old ssh key, both from my machine and from my Bitbucket account, and replaced it with a newly generated one. My .ssh config file contains this as recommended:

Host * UseKeychain yes

So I have added the new key id_rsa to ssh agent:

ssh-add -K ~/.ssh/id_rsa

and added id_rsa.pub to my Bitbucket account as described in the instructions.

Still when I run ssh -T [email protected] I see: "kex_exchange_identification: write: Broken pipe"

Here is the output with the -v flag enabled:

daniel@North ~ % ssh -T -v [email protected]
OpenSSH_8.1p1, LibreSSL 2.7.3
debug1: Reading configuration data /Users/daniel/.ssh/config
debug1: /Users/daniel/.ssh/config line 1: Applying options for *
debug1: Reading configuration data /etc/ssh/ssh_config
debug1: /etc/ssh/ssh_config line 47: Applying options for *
debug1: Connecting to bitbucket.org port 22.
debug1: Connection established.
debug1: identity file /Users/daniel/.ssh/id_rsa type 0
debug1: identity file /Users/daniel/.ssh/id_rsa-cert type -1
debug1: identity file /Users/daniel/.ssh/id_dsa type -1
debug1: identity file /Users/daniel/.ssh/id_dsa-cert type -1
debug1: identity file /Users/daniel/.ssh/id_ecdsa type -1
debug1: identity file /Users/daniel/.ssh/id_ecdsa-cert type -1
debug1: identity file /Users/daniel/.ssh/id_ed25519 type -1
debug1: identity file /Users/daniel/.ssh/id_ed25519-cert type -1
debug1: identity file /Users/daniel/.ssh/id_xmss type -1
debug1: identity file /Users/daniel/.ssh/id_xmss-cert type -1
kex_exchange_identification: write: Broken pipe

The strange thing is, when I try the exact same steps on a different Macbook, also running Big Sur, it actually works and I see 'authenticated via ssh key' when running the above command.

Anyone have any idea what might be causing the failure to connect?

Answer 1

my colleague has the same problem, strange thing is that it works when putting the mac in safe mode.