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When I access my OS X machine using SSH, I can't start a GNU screen session. It hangs and does not produce any kind of error message, also Ctrl-C doesn't have any effect. However, if I start a screen session by accessing the machine locally (in Terminal.app for example), and detach from that screen, I can attach to it over SSH.

Any ideas what may be causing that?

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do you try to start the session as the user who logged in through ssh (the one who owns the pty) or do you switch the user after login? – lajuette Jul 23 '10 at 10:46
Nope, did not switch user. – pojo Apr 12 '11 at 10:35
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It could be that screen is depending on GUI integration that has been compiled in and it can't find your $DISPLAY properly when you log in using SSH.

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AFAIK screen is a console/terminal-only application. On top of that it yould throw an error, if i couldn't connect to $DISPLAY – lajuette Jul 23 '10 at 10:44
screen is a terminal only application but e.g. vim is also a terminal application and can intercept X mouse scrolls events when run from the console if compiled with the correct options. – Mike McQuaid Jul 23 '10 at 11:26
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There could be an issue with your system - I can ssh to my system as a different users and run screen. Maybe run it under dtruss and see where it hangs?

sudo dtruss sudo -u $USER screen
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