Comment 2 for bug 985737

I think I located the problem. It seems when a file:// entry is in sources.list, Tasks no longer show up properly in apt-cache show, even if ports.ubuntu.com is in the file list. Removing the file entry, and rerunning apt-get update allows tasksel to properly work. While the file entry was in place, commands to install seeds such as apt-get install openssh-server^ simply failed with package not found.