Sometimes SFTP fails with the errors "Couldn't read packet: Connection reset by peer" or "Write failed: Broken pipe" or just "Connection closed"

Issue

This is intermittent, it will work once and then not work then work again and not work.

The complete output is

$ sftp noah@172.16.1.200
noah@172.16.1.200's password: 
subsystem request failed on channel 0
Couldn't read packet: Connection reset by peer
$

or

$ sftp noah@172.16.1.200
noah@172.16.1.200's password: 
Connection closed
$

or

$ ssh noah@172.16.1.200
noah@172.16.1.200's password: 
Write failed: Broken pipe
$