Using rsync to remote SSH user with no shell access
I know this is pretty old thread, but if somebody comes across this page in future...
I had the same problem, but got that fixed when I fixed my .bashrc .I removed the statement "echo setting DISPLAY=$DISPLAY" which was there before in my .bashrc. rsync has issues with that statement for some reason. So, fixing .bashrc/.cshrc/.profile errors helped me.