bug#18860: 24.4; packages don't download consistently from https

[Stefan Monnier]

> Emacs 24.4's package system does something odd when the archive is on
> HTTPS.
> It seems as if dependencies are downloaded through HTTPS but the main
> package is attempted to be downloaded through HTTP.

I did

   M-x trace-function RET url-retrieve-synchronously RET

before running your test.  On my first test, it failed at
shadchen-1.2.el but the request still had the right "https:" prefix.
IOW the trace shows that the url passed from package.el does include the
"https:" and the problem is somewhere in the URL package.

This said, I haven't managed to reproduce the problem since, so
I haven't been able to dig any further.  And in any case I'm not
familiar enough with the HTTP protocol to be of much use there.


        Stefan