Preseed file not working

[Fraser Campbell <fraser@georgetown.wehave.net>]

I have been trying to load a preseed file as is documented in the Sarge 
install manual.  It's not working for me.

I first tried the debian-installer RC1 and it seemed to completely ignore the 
option, I then upgraded to daily builds and was able to at least see it 
complain that it could not load the file.

I was appending the option preseed/file=http://blah/~fraser/aruba.debconf, I 
also tried preseed/url.

I understand that fetching from http means you will get asked questions up 
when the network is configured (I do have dhcp available).  I always went to 
the point where the network was configured and then selected the "Load 
debconf preseed" option (pardon inexact titles).  The file was not getting 
loaded (unable to fetch was the basic message) despite the fact that I could 
go to another console and wget the file.

On one occasion I did see the complaint "preseed file is corrupt" (again not 
exact message perhaps) but on subsequent attempts (with hopefully non-corrupt 
preseed files) I could not get it to give me that message again ... i.e. it 
seemed to not even be trying to fetch.

Is the preseed option functional at all?  Any tips/ideas on what I might be 
doing wrong?

Thanks!
-- 
Fraser Campbell <fraser@wehave.net>                 http://www.wehave.net/
Georgetown, Ontario, Canada                               Debian GNU/Linux