Octo.exe delete-releases takes forever or hangs

I’ve added a step to our build server to delete a release with a certain version if it has already been defined. I do it via

@@@
Octo.exe delete-releases --project=“Mainline” --minversion=1.37280.177.0 --maxversion=1.37280.177.0 --apikey=… --server=http://…/api
@@@

However, nine times out of 10 octo either takes very long, or hangs, or bombs with the following:

@@@
09-Jul-2013 13:41:22 Octopus Command Line Tool, version 1.1.17.55
09-Jul-2013 13:41:22
09-Jul-2013 13:41:22 Finding project: Mainline
09-Jul-2013 13:41:22 Handshaking with Octopus server: http://nybuild02:8082/api
09-Jul-2013 13:41:22 Handshake successful. Octopus version: 1.6.1.1718; API version: 2.0.0
09-Jul-2013 13:41:22 Finding releases for project…
09-Jul-2013 13:42:26 Unexpected character encountered while parsing value: <. Line 2, position 1.
09-Jul-2013 13:42:26 Newtonsoft.Json.JsonReaderException: Unexpected character encountered while parsing value: <. Line 2, position 1.
09-Jul-2013 13:42:26 at Newtonsoft.Json.JsonTextReader.ParseValue(Char currentChar)
@@@

The other two commands, octo.exe create-release and octo.exe deploy-release work consistently.

What gives?

I observe the same behavior today. When I tested deleting releases last week, it did work correctly.

Octopus Command Line Tool, version 1.1.17.62
Octopus Deploy 1.6.1.1718

Restarting the IIS and Octopus Windows service did not resolve the problem.