500 internal server error crashes bzr

While trying to branch from a remote server, bzr is crashing and throwing out lots of errors. On further inspection the server is at fault here - returning a 500 internal server error message - but bzr appears to not know how to handle it.

Instead of a nice simple error message bzr throws all these messages that aren't too helpful (Yes - it does state that there was a 500 internal error but it was not immediately clear)

bzr: ERROR: xmlrpclib.ProtocolError: <ProtocolError for localhost:8001/sc/xmlrpc: 500 Internal Server Error>

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/usr/lib/python2.6/dist-packages/bzrlib/commands.py", line 853, in exception_to_return_code
    return the_callable(*args, **kwargs)
  File "/usr/lib/python2.6/dist-packages/bzrlib/commands.py", line 1055, in run_bzr
    ret = run(*run_argv)
  File "/usr/lib/python2.6/dist-packages/bzrlib/commands.py", line 661, in run_argv_aliases
    return self.run_direct(**all_cmd_args)
  File "/usr/lib/python2.6/dist-packages/bzrlib/commands.py", line 665, in run_direct
    return self._operation.run_simple(*args, **kwargs)
  File "/usr/lib/python2.6/dist-packages/bzrlib/cleanup.py", line 122, in run_simple
    self.cleanups, self.func, *args, **kwargs)
  File "/usr/lib/python2.6/dist-packages/bzrlib/cleanup.py", line 156, in _do_with_cleanups
    result = func(*args, **kwargs)
  File "/usr/lib/python2.6/dist-packages/sloecode/bzrplugins/scserve/__init__.py", line 113, in run
    lp_server.start_server()
  File "/usr/lib/python2.6/dist-packages/sloecode/codehosting/server.py", line 113, in start_server
    self._queryUserPermissions()
  File "/usr/lib/python2.6/dist-packages/sloecode/codehosting/server.py", line 105, in _queryUserPermissions
    self.codehosting_client.getAccessPermissionsForUser(self.username))
  File "/usr/lib/python2.6/xmlrpclib.py", line 1199, in __call__
    return self.__send(self.__name, args)
  File "/usr/lib/python2.6/xmlrpclib.py", line 1489, in __request
    verbose=self.__verbose
  File "/usr/lib/python2.6/xmlrpclib.py", line 1243, in request
    headers
ProtocolError: <ProtocolError for localhost:8001/sc/xmlrpc: 500 Internal Server Error>

bzr 2.1.2 on python 2.6.6 (Linux-2.6.32-5-686-i686-with-debian-6.0.4)