preseeding partitionning isn't working anymore hardy 8.04.2

15:14 <cjwatson> stgraber: any chance you could do a bit of set -x debugging work for me?
15:15 <cjwatson> stgraber: remove enough of your preseeding so that you get the hostname prompt, then run through the installer until the hostname prompt appears, switch to tty2, 'nano /bin/perform_recipe',
                 and put 'set -x' on the second line
15:16 <cjwatson> stgraber: then switch back to tty1, continue the installation, and send me the syslog again
15:16 <cjwatson> (I've looked through the existing logs and they don't really give me enough, unfortunately)
15:22 <stgraber> cjwatson: sure
15:24 <stgraber> cjwatson: I don't have perform_recipe when at the hostname prompt
15:24 <stgraber> isn't it downloaded right after that prompt ? (I'm using mini.iso)
15:26 <cjwatson> can you stick around for a bit? I have to run right now
15:27 <stgraber> sure, I'm EST so I have plenty of time :)

19:01 <cjwatson> stgraber: I think the best approach, then, might be to use expert mode (priority=low), to step through the installer until just before the partitioner starts, make those changes, and then set the priority back up to high or critical or whatever you want from the relevant main menu item

I did some testing.
I started the installer with the preseed file, let it fail, set -x in bin/perform_recipe then i get back to make it fail again.

here is the result.

You added 'set -x' to /bin/partman. I'm afraid this is no good to me; I asked for it to be added to /bin/perform_recipe. Thanks in advance ...

I just did the same thing by putting set -x in /lib/partman/lib/base.sh

here is the result.

This appears to be due to an invisible trailing space on this line:

                      mountpoint{ / } \

The backslash must be the very last character on the line. Can you please confirm that this fixes your problem?

Removing the tailling space resolv the issue, but the preseed file was working before the 8.04.2 and the file wasn't edited between then and now.

cjwatson> mgariepy: are you sure it wasn't edited in any way? this is the sort of thing that can easily creep in by accident
<cjwatson> I'm pretty certain that none of the preseed-file handling code changed in 8.04.x, and this is right at the bottom level
<mgariepy> yeah, the preseed file is in subversion ""r1196 | mgariepy | 2008-08-14 18:22:44 -0400 (Thu, 14 Aug 2008) | 1 line""
<cjwatson> well, I'm not sure what could have caused it to work, then, but I know it's broken as-is :-)
<mgariepy> plus i had like 35 server isntall with it :)
<cjwatson> that's definitely the thing causing the failure - you can see it stopping there in the trace

As the comments above explain, the issue was that the installer seemed not to fail when there was trailing spaces at the end of a line preceded by a \, it now does although it's not a bug but the expected behavior.
Marking the bug as won't fix.