It looks like for some reason it believes that the md5sum of the existing file /v/r/grub/menu.list and the newly constructed file $buffer match and therefore does not take action and uses the file /v/r/grub/menu.list
It looks like for some reason it believes that the md5sum of the existing file /v/r/grub/menu.list and the newly constructed file $buffer match and therefore does not take action and uses the file /v/r/grub/menu.list