verbosity cannot be increased (“debug” option broken)

[Bill Yikes]

When the “debug” option is uncommented in /etc/ppp/options as well as the “-detach” option, the ppp logging is no more verbose than without those options. They seem to take no effect. This is the output I see either way:

/var/log/messages:
===8<------------------------------
$timestamp $host pppd[84797]: pppd 2.4.9 started by $user, uid 0
$timestamp $host pppd[84797]: Using interface ppp0
$timestamp $host pppd[84797]: Connect: ppp0 <--> /dev/ttyUSB0
$timestamp $host pppd[84797]: LCP: timeout sending Config-Requests
$timestamp $host pppd[84797]: Connection terminated.
$timestamp $host pppd[84797]: Modem hangup
$timestamp $host pppd[84797]: Exit.
------------------------------>8===

I know that some people get more verbosity because I see posts showing more verbosity, like the output in this bug report:

  https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=489243

At first I thought I was encountering this bug:

  https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=639368

But I think that bug is different because Beraldo Costa Leal gets just one line of output (not even the standard output). In any case, these bugs are similar and should perhaps be examined at the same time.