When I do a darcs put of a darcs-1-format repo over ssh to a remote server, it
looks like it tries to make the new target repo be darcs-2-format:

zooko@hanford:~/server$ time darcs put  -v -v -v --debug --timing
zooko@allmydata.org:putserver-test 2>&1 | tee zooko.put.log.txt
Fri Dec  5 04:34:45 PST 2008: Creating repository
Fri Dec  5 04:34:45 PST 2008: Beginning identifying repository .
Fri Dec  5 04:34:45 PST 2008: Done identifying repository .
Fri Dec  5 04:34:45 PST 2008: ssh zooko@allmydata.org darcs initialize
--repodir='putserver-test' 
Fri Dec  5 04:34:45 PST 2008: Disabling progress reports...
Fri Dec  5 04:34:45 PST 2008: Reenabling progress reports.
Fri Dec  5 04:34:45 PST 2008: Beginning identifying repository .
Fri Dec  5 04:34:45 PST 2008: Done identifying repository .
Fri Dec  5 04:34:45 PST 2008: Identified darcs-1 repo: /home/zooko/server
Fri Dec  5 04:34:45 PST 2008: Beginning reading inventory of repository
/home/zooko/server
Fri Dec  5 04:34:45 PST 2008: Beginning reading inventory of repository
/home/zooko/server
Fri Dec  5 04:34:45 PST 2008: Done reading inventory of repository
/home/zooko/server
Fri Dec  5 04:34:45 PST 2008: Disabling progress reports...
Fri Dec  5 04:34:45 PST 2008: ssh zooko@allmydata.org darcs apply --all --debug
--repodir 'putserver-test'
Beginning identifying repository .
Done identifying repository .
Identified darcs-2 repo: /home/zooko/putserver-test

(Note that /home/zooko/putserver-test did not exist before this command was run.)

If I let that command run for a long time it will yield strange errors claiming
that patches are ill-formed.  In contrast if I add "--hashed" or
"--old-fashioned" to the command line then it emits:

zooko@hanford:~/server$ time darcs put --old-fashioned -v -v -v --debug --timing
zooko@allmydata.org:putserver-old 2>&1 | tee zooko.put.log.txt
...
Fri Dec  5 04:34:23 PST 2008: ssh zooko@allmydata.org darcs apply --all --debug
--repodir 'putserver-old'
Beginning identifying repository .
Done identifying repository .
Identified darcs-1 repo: /home/zooko/putserver-old

Here's the error that I promised:

zooko@hanford:~/server$ time darcs put  -v -v -v --debug --timing
zooko@allmydata.org:putserver-test2 2>&1 | tee zooko.put.log.txt
Fri Dec  5 04:38:18 PST 2008: Creating repository
Fri Dec  5 04:38:18 PST 2008: Beginning identifying repository .
Fri Dec  5 04:38:18 PST 2008: Done identifying repository .
Fri Dec  5 04:38:18 PST 2008: ssh zooko@allmydata.org darcs initialize
--repodir='putserver-test2' 
Fri Dec  5 04:38:18 PST 2008: Disabling progress reports...
Fri Dec  5 04:38:19 PST 2008: Reenabling progress reports.
Fri Dec  5 04:38:19 PST 2008: Beginning identifying repository .
Fri Dec  5 04:38:19 PST 2008: Done identifying repository .
Fri Dec  5 04:38:19 PST 2008: Identified darcs-1 repo: /home/zooko/server
Fri Dec  5 04:38:19 PST 2008: Beginning reading inventory of repository
/home/zooko/server
Fri Dec  5 04:38:19 PST 2008: Beginning reading inventory of repository
/home/zooko/server
Fri Dec  5 04:38:19 PST 2008: Done reading inventory of repository
/home/zooko/server
Fri Dec  5 04:38:19 PST 2008: Disabling progress reports...
Fri Dec  5 04:38:19 PST 2008: ssh zooko@allmydata.org darcs apply --all --debug
--repodir 'putserver-test2'
Beginning identifying repository .
Done identifying repository .
Identified darcs-2 repo: /home/zooko/putserver-test2

darcs failed:  Malformed patch bundle: '{' is not 'Context:'

It looks like issue1217 might be related.

I think this should be fairly easy to fix (we need to pass along the
--old-fashioned flag to darcs put)... I'll bet that we used to have code to
intelligently detect if we need to pass along the --darcs-2 flag to darcs apply
(back before --darcs-2 repos were default), and that we can just re-arrange it so.

Hi Ben,

Would you like to try this one out?  This would fix a really annoying bug with
darcs put and old-fashioned (or hashed) repositories.  Feel free to un-assign
yourself.

Thanks!

Actually, David has recently fixed this in his patch:
Sat Feb 14 21:46:40 GMT 2009  David Roundy <droundy@darcs.net>
  * fix bug in put of darcs-1 format repositories.