Gittrac #4312:  Fixed the main problem documented in this ticket;
current commit has a bunch of temporary debug code, notes, etc.
Gittrac #4312:  All node status file-related tests now work; still
lots of temporary debug code, etc., and I want to re-check intermediate
states.
Gittrac #4312:  Hopefully final implementation of main bug fix;
removed temporary code.
Merge branch 'V8_2-gittrac_4312-branch' into V8_2-branch
Gittrac #4312:  Merged fix into 8.2 and added version history entry.