Comment 34 for bug 856810

I'm also able to see this happening while using the linaro-nano image (just a minimal rootfs based on ubuntu oneiric).

The failsafe service will always be called, because of the upstart script dependencies:
"start on filesystem and net-device-up IFACE=lo"

This just exists so rc-sysinit.conf can also be called after failsafe:
"start on (filesystem and static-network-up) or failsafe-boot"

On my case I need to debug upstart to see why the static-network-up event wasn't available at the time failsafe-boot finished, still in progress.