Q: When I try to scp a file to my machine, it doesn't work. I get strange output and never see the file progress dialog. Why?

Answer

Chances are you have a .bashrc or a .cshrc file that is producing output.

.bashrc and .cshrc files should never produce output, as they get executed any time a new shell is spawned. If you wish to have certain commands run when you log in, you should place them in your .login file if you use tcsh or your .bash_profile if you use bash.

Note: This behavior is different on Athena.