You are sure that the ssh config allows you to run the failing commands, aren't you ?

Also, as anony monk has already said, try printing the value of $stderr to get at the error from the ssh session e.g. print $stdout ? $stdout : $stderr;.

You could also try pre-fixing status.sh with $HOME i.e. $HOME/status.sh since . is not normally on the path for an ssh login because of it's inherent insecurity, ensuring that the command is set up within single quotes in order to ensure that it is expanded at the remote end $command = '/usr/bin/sh $HOME/status.sh';.