Mac OS X - ssl corruption problems (libpq)

This has taken a while of searching but when I'm working with blobs  
in a binary connection, sometimes the SSL connection gets corrupted.

Local or remote host.

Mac OS X 10.3.9, Mac OS X 10.4.x - all fail.  Occasionally.   using  
libpq, gcc-3.3, compiling for OSX 10.3.9.   Application is in  
objective C with exceptions enabled, but that shouldn't affect the  
library.   I've got no way to compile this for another platform....   
it's too tied into this one.

server platform - doesn't matter.   Tested against other macintosh  
servers, linux and could test on a windows server if that would  
help.   Probably not.   HAVE tested it against 7.4 as well as 8 and  
8.1 servers - it doesn't seem to be a server side glitch.

After some serious time with an ultraslow debugger it seems the  
connection's receiving corrupt data but there's nothing coming back  
to the front end - and I have no idea how to pursue this further.

I'm working with a database of photographs if that helps.   I've  
tested postgres 8.0 and 8.1.   I actually suspect the error's in  
MacOSX but the SSL handler for postgres (theoretically) should catch  
this I'd suspect....  maybe.

Thanks in advance for any suggestions or directions.   Ta!