Cobblerd fails immediately after starting Satellite services with traceback error,"ValueError: empty string for float()"

Issue

• cobblerd fails during startup

  Stopping cobbler daemon:                                   [  OK  ]
  Starting cobbler daemon: Traceback (most recent call last):
    File "/usr/bin/cobblerd", line 91, in main
      app.core(api)
    File "/usr/lib/python2.6/site-packages/cobbler/cobblerd.py", line 50, in core
      do_xmlrpc_tasks(bootapi, settings, xmlrpc_port)
    File "/usr/lib/python2.6/site-packages/cobbler/cobblerd.py", line 68, in do_xmlrpc_tasks
      do_xmlrpc_rw(bootapi, settings, xmlrpc_port)
    File "/usr/lib/python2.6/site-packages/cobbler/cobblerd.py", line 106, in do_xmlrpc_rw
      xinterface = remote.ProxiedXMLRPCInterface(bootapi,remote.CobblerXMLRPCInterface)
    File "/usr/lib/python2.6/site-packages/cobbler/remote.py", line 1747, in __init__
      self.proxied = proxy_class(api)
    File "/usr/lib/python2.6/site-packages/cobbler/remote.py", line 124, in __init__
      self.timestamp = self.api.last_modified_time()
    File "/usr/lib/python2.6/site-packages/cobbler/api.py", line 190, in last_modified_time
      return float(data)
  ValueError: empty string for float()
  

• "WEB TRACEBACK" email generated on startup, with java exceptions

• "rhn-satellite start" shows OK for cobblerd startup, but subsequent "rhn-satellite status" shows "cobblerd dead but subsys locked"