At least part of the problem is that the backwards compatibility values in setup.cfg have been mis-spelt:

"nova.openstack.common.notififier.rpc_notifier

instead of

"nova.openstack.common.notifier.rpc_notifier"

However configuring for the misspelt value now produces an exception in the API layer:

2014-02-07 11:03:51.557 DEBUG oslo.messaging._drivers.amqp [-] UNIQUE_ID is fe1eb0016f3b4c3a856dd782ce990e09. from (pid=30234) _add_unique_id /mnt/stack/oslo.messaging/oslo/messaging/_drivers/amqp.py:333
2014-02-07 11:03:51.558 ERROR oslo.messaging.notify._impl_messaging [-] Could not send notification to monitor. Payload={'priority': 'INFO', '_unique_id': 'fe1eb0016f3b4c3a856dd782ce990e09', 'event_type': 'compute.instance.update', 'timestamp': '2014-02-07 11:03:51.557402', 'publisher_id': 'None.devstack-net-cache', 'payload': {'node': u'devstack-net-cache', 'state_description': 'deleting', 'ramdisk_id': u'50f5d917-91c7-4ffe-8126-9bbb7de2fceb', 'created_at': '2014-02-07 09:44:42', 'access_ip_v6': None, 'disk_gb': 1L, 'availability_zone': None, 'terminated_at': '', 'ephemeral_gb': 0L, 'instance_type_id': 2L, 'instance_flavor_id': '1', 'audit_period_ending': datetime.datetime(2014, 2, 7, 11, 3, 51, 552808), 'host': u'devstack-net-cache', 'user_id': u'd053d4cd7cec4279b740488e53ef7f00', 'deleted_at': '', 'reservation_id': u'r-oggomnqk', 'image_ref_url': u'http://10.2.197.166:9292/images/4f51bf3b-2ca5-4401-8c16-ea6225a24600', 'memory_mb': 512L, 'root_gb': 1L, 'display_name': u'foo', 'bandwidth': {}, 'instance_type': 'm1.tiny', 'tenant_id': u'2db8d9b4711240328b8a6c2735c3a520', 'access_ip_v4': None, 'hostname': u'foo', 'vcpus': 1L, 'old_task_state': None, 'instance_id': u'fa59ad82-91a3-4773-8f33-c18b30a788e3', 'kernel_id': u'ebbaae92-2583-4bb1-a899-46f396b1680b', 'state': u'active', 'image_meta': {u'kernel_id': u'ebbaae92-2583-4bb1-a899-46f396b1680b', u'container_format': u'ami', u'min_ram': u'0', u'ramdisk_id': u'50f5d917-91c7-4ffe-8126-9bbb7de2fceb', u'disk_format': u'ami', u'min_disk': u'1', u'base_image_ref': u'4f51bf3b-2ca5-4401-8c16-ea6225a24600'}, 'architecture': None, 'new_task_state': u'deleting', 'audit_period_beginning': datetime.datetime(2014, 2, 1, 0, 0), 'old_state': u'active', 'os_type': None, 'launched_at': '2014-02-07T09:44:47.000000', 'metadata': {}}, 'message_id': '03392b37-325e-4960-8a13-0367f9223e51'}
2014-02-07 11:03:51.558 TRACE oslo.messaging.notify._impl_messaging Traceback (most recent call last):
2014-02-07 11:03:51.558 TRACE oslo.messaging.notify._impl_messaging   File "/mnt/stack/oslo.messaging/oslo/messaging/notify/_impl_messaging.py", line 47, in notify
2014-02-07 11:03:51.558 TRACE oslo.messaging.notify._impl_messaging     version=self.version)
2014-02-07 11:03:51.558 TRACE oslo.messaging.notify._impl_messaging   File "/mnt/stack/oslo.messaging/oslo/messaging/transport.py", line 93, in _send_notification
2014-02-07 11:03:51.558 TRACE oslo.messaging.notify._impl_messaging     self._driver.send_notification(target, ctxt, message, version)
2014-02-07 11:03:51.558 TRACE oslo.messaging.notify._impl_messaging   File "/mnt/stack/oslo.messaging/oslo/messaging/_drivers/amqpdriver.py", line 393, in send_notification
2014-02-07 11:03:51.558 TRACE oslo.messaging.notify._impl_messaging     return self._send(target, ctxt, message, envelope=(version == 2.0))
2014-02-07 11:03:51.558 TRACE oslo.messaging.notify._impl_messaging   File "/mnt/stack/oslo.messaging/oslo/messaging/_drivers/amqpdriver.py", line 362, in _send
2014-02-07 11:03:51.558 TRACE oslo.messaging.notify._impl_messaging     rpc_amqp.pack_context(msg, context)
2014-02-07 11:03:51.558 TRACE oslo.messaging.notify._impl_messaging   File "/mnt/stack/oslo.messaging/oslo/messaging/_drivers/amqp.py", line 299, in pack_context
2014-02-07 11:03:51.558 TRACE oslo.messaging.notify._impl_messaging     context_d = six.iteritems(context.to_dict())
2014-02-07 11:03:51.558 TRACE oslo.messaging.notify._impl_messaging   File "/usr/local/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/six.py", line 484, in iteritems
2014-02-07 11:03:51.558 TRACE oslo.messaging.notify._impl_messaging     return iter(getattr(d, _iteritems)(**kw))
2014-02-07 11:03:51.558 TRACE oslo.messaging.notify._impl_messaging AttributeError: 'RequestContext' object has no attribute 'iteritems'
2014-02-07 11:03:51.558 TRACE oslo.messaging.notify._impl_messaging 
2014-02-07 11:03:51.559 DEBUG oslo.messaging._drivers.amqp [-] UNIQUE_ID is e543c2f91dda4a66aa48a99ea7799e09. from (pid=30234) _add_unique_id /mnt/stack/oslo.messaging/oslo/messaging/_drivers/amqp.py:333