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!