mysterious error message

Hello all:

I receive the following error message when I try to do a 'git push':

  tomfool@toms-box:hpl$ git push
  updating 'refs/heads/master'
    from ad4ae7925d3dd23798e7c5b733d2d8f930f7410f
    to   5b5f5fae014a4f3535fa10b0f6e28b4bf3225dc3
   Also local refs/remotes/origin/master
  Generating pack...
  Done counting 10 objects.
  Deltifying 10 objects...
  error: pack-objects died with strange error
  unpack eof before pack header was fully read
  ng refs/heads/master n/a (unpacker error)
  error: failed to push to 'ssh://tomfool@as220.org/home/tomfool/hpl.git'
  tomfool@toms-box:hpl$

I haven't been able to interpret this message, and haven't found it in the documentation, and google has let me down, too. Can anyone tell me what is causing it?

I'm a new git user, and this is a new git archive. I've successfully done a couple of git push operations before, though. The connection I'm making is via ssh. I'm working on a Mac OS X (10.4.9) machine over here and the server to which I'm trying to push is a Linux box (2.6.22-gentoo-r6).

Many thanks,

 -tom