Cap trouble: deploy:update stalling after "executing locally

I’m afraid this may well turn out to be a newb error rather than a bug,
but I’m having this issue while attempting to deploy an application for
the first time (both the first time for the app and the first time for
me).
I am using a VPS (railsplayground is my hosting company) and have stored
my repository on github. I am attempting to deploy incrementally. I have
done deploy:setup successfully, but now I am at deploy:update and am
being unsuccessful.
Every time I run it I get this:
cap deploy:update

  • executing deploy:update’
    ** transaction: start
  • executingdeploy:update_code’
    updating the cached checkout on all servers
    executing locally: "git ls-remote
    git://github.com/stacyvlasits/realty.git master"

Then it just hangs. I get no error message, so I’m not sure what is
going wrong.
I have tried customizing my deploy.rb in many different ways, but no
change that I have made has altered. Here is what I am currently using:
ssh_options[:forward_agent] = true
default_run_options[:pty] = true
set :deploy_via, :remote_cache
set :use_sudo, false
set :application, “realty”
set :repository, “git://github.com/stacyvlasits/realty.git”
set :deploy_to, “Library/Rails/#{application}”
set :mongrel_conf, “#{current_path}/config/mongrel_cluster.yml”
set :scm, :git
set :user_name, “clavatra”
set :branch, “master”

Or: accurev, bzr, cvs, darcs, git, mercurial, perforce,

subversion or none
role :web, “resortrealty.clavat.railsplayground.net

Your HTTP server, Apache/etc

role :app, “resortrealty.clavat.railsplayground.net

This may be the same as your Web server

role :db, “resortrealty.clavat.railsplayground.net”, :primary => true #
This is where Rails migrations will run
#role :db, “your slave db-server here”
default_run_options[:pty] = true
I posted similar information on the github site and they suggested it
may have something to do with SSH. Sadly, I am also pretty new to SSH
and none of my attempts to change things in that direction have born
fruit either.
Much obliged,