[GIT] fatal: protocol error: bad line length character: ?[H?

Verify that you don’t have weird stuff in ~/.ssh/config , ~/.bashrc , ~/.bash_profile or ~/.profile

I had these lines on top of ~/.ssh/config

PermitLocalCommand yes                                                                                                            
LocalCommand /usr/bin/clear

I commented those out

#PermitLocalCommand yes                                                                                                            
#LocalCommand /usr/bin/clear

And the problem was fixed.