[tor-relays] entry guard interference?

[starlight.2015q1 at binnacle.cx]

More important detail I should include:

After spending a few minutes trying to
figure out what was wrong, I restarted the
'tor' relay daemon.  It came up like this:


Bootstrapped 5%: Connecting to directory server.
We now have enough directory information to build circuits.
Bootstrapped 80%: Connecting to the Tor network.
Bootstrapped 85%: Finishing handshake with first hop.
2 entries in guards
Failed to find node for hop 0 of our path. Discarding this circuit.
2 entries in guards
Failed to find node for hop 0 of our path. Discarding this circuit.
Self-testing indicates your ORPort is reachable from the outside. Excellent. Publishing server descriptor.
Failed to find node for hop 0 of our path. Discarding this circuit.
Failed to find node for hop 0 of our path. Discarding this circuit.
.
.
.


This says to me that much or all of the Tor
network was contactable at the time of the
restart, _but_ the two entry nodes were not
reachable.

My next action was to stop the relay, comment
out the 'EntryNodes' line, and start it again.
Came all the way up immediately.  Interestingly
the two favorite entry guards (still present
in the 'state' file) were now accessible again
and were retained as the chosen guards.  I put
back the hard-EntryNodes config and restarted
and again it came up fine.

The restart where the entry guards were not
contactable is what really made me wonder
what has happened here.

I did notice in the 'state' file a line
indicating each guard was "down since xxxx".
I take this as simply informational and
that it would not have prevented the relay
from attempting to reach them when it was
restarted.