freebsd stable - Nov 2008 - OpenSSH error: error: key_read: uudecode failed FreeBSD_7 stable

Hello,

I installed FreeBSD from 7.0-release and brought up to stable a few days
ago:

lentil# uname -a
FreeBSD lentil.growveg.org 7.1-PRERELEASE FreeBSD 7.1-PRERELEASE #0: Mon
Nov 10 09:21:06 GMT 2008
root@lentil.growveg.org:/ext0/system/src/sys/i386/compile/LENTIL  i386

today I recompiled the kernel because I had stripped out the ipv6 stuff
- however some apps seem to require it. That all went well. Afterwards,
I set up the logging. I'm noticing the following error from the console:


Nov 10 17:19:43 lentil sshd[1956]: error: key_read: uudecode
AAAAB3NzaC1kc3MAAACBAKLAJVTvYOqi5bVYEyahzSTrb0L4JbLGhtiNGEXQr/pqWcTxBoicc1/EJt0MCirV3+A63smW4e7sfeZQhcKkwvL6MrSqc2wKSmJfPkV5GY/zwFiRLcsuNRWtd9Zgg8/mWhp5fZlZ6M81Cz\n
failed
Nov 10 17:19:43 lentil kernel: Nov 10 17:19:43 lentil sshd[1956]: error:
key_read: uudecode
AAAAB3NzaC1kc3MAAACBAKLAJVTvYOqi5bVYEyahzSTrb0L4JbLGhtiNGEXQr/pqWcTxBoicc1/EJt0MCirV3+A63smW4e7sfeZQhcKkwvL6MrSqc2wKSmJfPkV5GY/zwFiRLcsuNRWtd9Zgg8/mWhp5fZlZ6M81Cz\n
failed
Nov 10 17:19:43 lentil sshd[1956]: error: key_read: uudecode
AAAAB3NzaC1kc3MAAACBAKLAJVTvYOqi5bVYEyahzSTrb0L4JbLGhtiNGEXQr/pqWcTxBoicc1/EJt0MCirV3+A63smW4e7sfeZQhcKkwvL6MrSqc2wKSmJfPkV5GY/zwFiRLcsuNRWtd9Zgg8/mWhp5fZlZ6M81Cz\n
failed
Nov 10 17:19:43 lentil sshd[1956]: Accepted publickey for john from
62.49.247.174 port 55327 ssh2
Nov 10 17:19:43 lentil kernel: Nov 10 17:19:43 lentil sshd[1956]: error:
key_read: uudecode
AAAAB3NzaC1kc3MAAACBAKLAJVTvYOqi5bVYEyahzSTrb0L4JbLGhtiNGEXQr/pqWcTxBoicc1/EJt0MCirV3+A63smW4e7sfeZQhcKkwvL6MrSqc2wKSmJfPkV5GY/zwFiRLcsuNRWtd9Zgg8/mWhp5fZlZ6M81Cz\n
failed

It doesn't seem to stop sshd from working, but it's annoying
nonetheless. I did a quick google, and found someone describing the same
problem at https://bugzilla.mindrot.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1525 but they
say this was fixed in OpenSSH 4.7. - that URL is the latest report of
the problem.

I'm running a much later version:

sshd: OpenSSH_5.1p1 FreeBSD-20080901, OpenSSL 0.9.8e 23 Feb 2007

Can anyone help me with a fix/workaround?

thanks
-- 
John