Bug#502850: debian-installer: D-I fails to process some correct (!) preseed files

[Frans Pop <elendil@planet.nl>]

On Tuesday 21 October 2008, Frans Pop wrote:
> What we're now going to need is a simplified, reproducible testcase;
> probably just a simple script that sets a variable to a "bad" value
> and then executes the test above.

I've given this a try, and was able to reproduce it in a somewhat 
simplified test in qemu-system-x64, but only with your "bad" preseed 
file, not using a simpler test case.
I can also reproduce the very weird way the problem disappears if a change 
is made later in the file.

I've also found one possibly relevant factor that makes a difference. If
/usr/share/debconf/confmodule is *not* sourced, the error goes away. But 
OTOH I've also seen other changes in the *script* (even ones that should 
not make any functional difference) make the error go away...

However, I do not see any real pattern in the issue. And the above 
variables are going to make it almost impossible to reproduce it outside 
the D-I environment.
And as there are multiple possible culprits and tracing this further is 
going to require really serious debugging skills, I don't really see 
anybody following up on this, so I think the best thing here is to just 
be happy that it's fixed for Lenny.

Cheers,
FJP