UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers

So, this is strange... I created this prompt:

Code:

PS1='\n\e[32;40m${debian_chroot:+($debian_chroot)}\u@\h:\w : \j job(s)\n\@\$ \e[0m'

You can see that it's a pretty minor modification of the default Debian prompt. And, if it matters, I'm using Putty to SSH to my server. The following strange symptoms appear when I use that prompt, and disappear when I change and source to the default:

1) If I type 16 or more characters at the command line, the first 4 get "stuck". Please pardon me if this isn't clear... it's a little odd to describe. Suppose I type "abcdefghijklmnop". If I then hit ^A to return to the start of the line, my cursor ends up on the "e", not the "a". Nothing I do can move it to a, b, c, or d. Not back-arrow, not backspace, nothing.

2) If I up-arrow to review history, at some point the first 4 characters of a previous command will get stuck in the same way. After that, all the prior commands are appended to those stuck characters. The commands still work, though. For example, "ll /crontab -e" brought up the crontab editor properly, so apparently those first 4 are ignored for this purpose.

Any thoughts? Many thanks in advance.