Weird Ansible (and SSH) conduct

I am experiencing two bizarre behaviours, out of nowhere, with none intentional change on my half:

1. Ansible (ansible all -i foo, -m ping) not solely began to ask for the SSH key’s password, but additionally the important thing’s password is now (seemingly) incorrect. ❌

2. the exact same key password is deemed appropriate by SSH (ssh -F /path/to/my_ssh_config foo) however the password solely works in case 1.:

   1. [✅ works] if typed comparatively rapidly;
   2. [❌ doesn’t work] if typed slowly, taking say a second between every key press;
   3. [❌ doesn’t work] if pasted.

Each Ansible and SSH immediate for the password with

Enter passphrase for key '/Customers/foo/.ssh/bar':

(Ansible additionally provides ‘a white key’ Unicode grapheme after the :.)

• ansible [core 2.17.1]
• Python 3.11.5
• OpenSSH_9.4p1, LibreSSL 3.3.6
• macOS 14.3 (23D56)

Related information:

• /path/to/my_ssh_config, for each 1. (Ansible) and a pair of. (SSH) above:

Host *
  StrictHostKeyChecking no
  Consumer ec2-user
  IdentityFile /Customers/foo/.ssh/bar
Host bounce
  Hostname 34.1.1.1
Host foo
  ProxyJump bounce
  Hostname 10.1.1.1

• for 1. (Ansible) is under ansible.cfg, which is in the identical listing from the place the above Ansible command is run (ansible all):

[defaults]
host_key_checking = False
interpreter_python = auto
stdout_callback=group.common.yaml

[ssh_connection]
ssh_args = -F /path/to/my_ssh_config