Absolutely cannot run tor 0.2.1.7-alpha

[Praedor Atrebates <praedor@xxxxxxxxx>]

This is driving me nuts.  I have repeatedly tried to upgrade to the latest tor 
with no success.  If I build and install it without doing any configuration, 
it will run with the builtin defaults (including the default server name) but 
if I try to create a torrc file, no matter what I do with it (using 
torrc.sample as a template) tor fails to run.  No error messages at all. 

What the hell is it with the latest tor and its config file?  Did something 
drastic change?  Why is the torrc.sample unusable as a simple template?  I've 
tried simply uncommenting a few of the basic settings (ORPort, etc) and 
changing the server name but this alone is enough to prevent tor from running.

For now it looks like I'm back to tor-0.2.1.6-alpha AGAIN.

praedor