ssh-add error

[Carl Macmillan <carlpmac@gmail.com>]

Hello

I would like to know if ssh-add is working as it is intended:

here is what I did:

mrdesk@desk ~/_pla $ ssh-add

Enter passphrase for /home/mrdesk/.ssh/id_rsa: 

here I entered nothing, the key does have, and was expecting a passphrase...  ssh-add failed silently.  

mrdesk@desk ~/_pla $ ssh-add

Enter passphrase for /home/mrdesk/.ssh/id_rsa: 

Identity added: /home/mrdesk/.ssh/id_rsa (/home/mrdesk/.ssh/id_rsa)

here I typed the passphrase and it happily says it worked. 

Can you tell me if the former silent error is intended? I'm kind of a novice and found myself stuck for an hour on an ssh authentication failure because I didn't realize the first effort was a failure, since it fails silently. 

versions:

mrdesk@desk ~/_pla $ ssh -v 

OpenSSH_5.9p1 Debian-5, OpenSSL 1.0.1 14 Mar 2012

-Carl Macmillan

carlpmac@gmail.com