I noticed this was mount read only on the problem node:
devpts on /dev/pts type devpts (ro,nosuid,noexec,relatime,mode=600,ptmxmode=000)
whereas this is rw on a node working fine:
devpts on /dev/pts type devpts (rw,nosuid,noexec,relatime,gid=5,mode=620,ptmxmode=000)