diff --git a/lib/ansible/runner/__init__.py b/lib/ansible/runner/__init__.py
index a1e566ce8ea..5462b94628c 100644
--- a/lib/ansible/runner/__init__.py
+++ b/lib/ansible/runner/__init__.py
@@ -655,7 +655,7 @@ class Runner(object):
 
         cmd = " || ".join(md5s)
         cmd = "%s; %s || (echo \"${rc}  %s\")" % (test, cmd, path)
-        return self._low_level_exec_command(conn, cmd, tmp, sudoable=False).split()[0]
+        return utils.last_non_blank_line(self._low_level_exec_command(conn, cmd, tmp, sudoable=False))
 
     # *****************************************************
 
@@ -675,7 +675,7 @@ class Runner(object):
         cmd += ' && echo %s' % basetmp
 
         result = self._low_level_exec_command(conn, cmd, None, sudoable=False)
-        return result.split("\n")[0].strip() + '/'
+        return utils.last_non_blank_line(result).strip() + '/'
 
     # *****************************************************
 
diff --git a/lib/ansible/runner/connection/ssh.py b/lib/ansible/runner/connection/ssh.py
index 8c84246e4ed..51195aa1f3f 100644
--- a/lib/ansible/runner/connection/ssh.py
+++ b/lib/ansible/runner/connection/ssh.py
@@ -60,7 +60,7 @@ class SSHConnection(object):
         ssh_cmd = ["ssh", "-tt", "-q"] + self.common_args + [self.host]
         if self.runner.sudo and sudoable:
             # Rather than detect if sudo wants a password this time, -k makes
-            # sudo always ask for a password if one is required. 
+            # sudo always ask for a password if one is required.
             # Passing a quoted compound command to sudo (or sudo -s)
             # directly doesn't work, so we shellquote it with pipes.quote()
             # and pass the quoted string to the user's shell.  We loop reading
@@ -98,16 +98,12 @@ class SSHConnection(object):
                                  stdout=subprocess.PIPE, stderr=subprocess.STDOUT)
 
         # We can't use p.communicate here because the ControlMaster may have stdout open as well
-        p.stdin.close()
         stdout = ''
         while p.poll() is None:
             rfd, wfd, efd = select.select([p.stdout], [], [p.stdout], 1)
             if p.stdout in rfd:
                 stdout += os.read(p.stdout.fileno(), 1024)
-        # older versions of ssh generate this error which we ignore
-        stdout=stdout.replace("tcgetattr: Invalid argument\n", "")
-        # suppress Ubuntu 10.04/12.04 error on -tt option
-        stdout=stdout.replace("tcgetattr: Inappropriate ioctl for device\n","")
+        p.stdin.close()  # close stdin after we read from stdout (see also issue #848)
 
         if p.returncode != 0 and stdout.find('Bad configuration option: ControlPersist') != -1:
             raise errors.AnsibleError('using -c ssh on certain older ssh versions may not support ControlPersist, set ANSIBLE_SSH_ARGS="" before running again')
diff --git a/lib/ansible/utils.py b/lib/ansible/utils.py
index e6d9bc80229..a0674731c0e 100644
--- a/lib/ansible/utils.py
+++ b/lib/ansible/utils.py
@@ -117,9 +117,11 @@ def json_loads(data):
 
     return json.loads(data)
 
-def parse_json(data):
+def parse_json(raw_data):
     ''' this version for module return data only '''
 
+    data = filter_leading_non_json_lines(raw_data)
+
     try:
         return json.loads(data)
     except:
@@ -307,10 +309,10 @@ def _gitinfo():
             branch = f.readline().split('/')[-1].rstrip("\n")
         branch_path = os.path.join(repo_path, "refs", "heads", branch)
         with open(branch_path) as f:
-            commit = f.readline()[:10] 
+            commit = f.readline()[:10]
         date = time.localtime(os.stat(branch_path).st_mtime)
         offset = time.timezone if (time.daylight == 0) else time.altzone
-        result = "({0} {1}) last updated {2} (GMT {3:+04d})".format(branch, commit, 
+        result = "({0} {1}) last updated {2} (GMT {3:+04d})".format(branch, commit,
             time.strftime("%Y/%m/%d %H:%M:%S", date), offset / -36)
     return result
 
@@ -415,3 +417,29 @@ def do_encrypt(result, encrypt, salt_size=None, salt=None):
 
     return result
 
+def last_non_blank_line(lines):
+    all_lines = lines.splitlines()
+    all_lines.reverse()
+    for line in all_lines:
+        if (len(line) > 0):
+            return line
+
+    return ""  # we shouldn't come here (no lines?) but let's pretend nothing happend
+        # We can't return all lines here because calling code expects only one
+        # line. And since we don't know which line to return we return an empty
+        # line.
+
+def is_valid_json_line(line):
+    return line.startswith('=') or line.startswith('{') or line.startswith('[')
+
+def filter_leading_non_json_lines(lines):
+    ''' we need to filter anything which starts not with '{', '[', ', '=' or is an empty line.
+        But we filter only leading lines since multiline JSON is valid. '''
+    filtered_lines = ''
+    no_more_filtering = False
+    for line in lines.splitlines():
+        if (no_more_filtering or is_valid_json_line(line)):
+            no_more_filtering = True
+            filtered_lines += line + '\n'
+    return filtered_lines
+