[chef] odd errors after restoring couchdb onto new chef server

hi. i'm trying to retire one chef server, and create a new one by loading
couchdb backups from the old one. i'm taking the restored chef server
for a spin and seeing odd errors. i'd like to ask about two things here:

1) previous knife search results are no longer present on new server

2) wierd errors running a chef-client against new server, like:
* ERROR: Server returned error for 
https://chef.venus.spergacula.com/cookbooks/users/1.0.0/files/[snip]
* cookbook_file EOFError: end of file reached

it makes me wonder if my couchdb load is borked. i do pass to couchdb-load
"--ignore-errors" because it won't load without that .. :>


the first question:

here's the old chef server i'm attempting to retire. i do indeed get
results from this query:

[cheftain02-auw2p chef-repo]$ knife search node 'role:postfix-server' | grep 
^Node
Node Name:   admin1.venus.spergacula.com
Node Name:   admin2.venus.spergacula.com


new chef server which was restored from the old one's couchdb:

[cheftain04-auw2p chef-repo]$ knife search node 'role:postfix-server'
0 items found

.. nothing. why?




the second question involves lots of debugging output, seen here:
https://gist.github.com/1904175

this gist shows me trying to run cheftain04 as a chef-client against
itself. doing this worked for me on the old server, cheftain02.

any idea why i'm seeing the 2 kinds of errors therein?

ERROR: Server returned error for 
https://chef.venus.spergacula.com/cookbooks/users/1.0.0/files/[snip]

and 

[Fri, 24 Feb 2012 21:55:03 +0000] DEBUG: Re-raising exception: EOFError - 
cookbook_file[/home/billeh/.ssh/known_hosts] (users::user-file-dist line 49) 
had an error: EOFError: end of file reached


i note that i was able to successfully run a different chef-client
against the new chef server successfully (after i disabled something
in a recipe that relied on search results that are currently missing).



thanks much,
kallen