[CentOS] sshd gives false "Too many authentication failures"

Sat Nov 20 09:02:04 UTC 2021
Andreas Fournier <andreas.fournier at runbox.com>

I just came across something strange with my fully updated Centos7
server. When I try to ssh into it the same way I've always done I get
"Too many authentication failures". This just came out of the blue. I'm
using the root account and a password. But in my sshd_config it still
reads
#MaxAuthTries 6
Which I think is the default. 

>From the console I can log in fine and when I look in the logs for sshd
I can just see the the attempts I just made, that are less than six and
no previous denied attemps.

Any clues what's going on?