can't verify platform through the cronjob, but works through the commandline

So I have this weird problem when importing external sites (as new platforms, to migrate them in Aegir). Here's the process I followed:

* untar a backup of the original site in /var/aegir/site.example.com
* fix perms (chown -R aegir:aegir /var/aegir/site.example.com)
* create platform node with that path
* wait a minute or two

I expected the platform to just verify, instead I get this:

Task starts processing
Running: php /var/hostmaster/drush/drush.php --root='/var/hostmaster/omarzblog.gnuvernment.org' 'provision' 'verify' --backend
Drush bootstrap phase : _drush_bootstrap_drush()
Drush bootstrap phase : _drush_bootstrap_drupal_root()
Initialized Drupal 5.5 root directory at /var/hostmaster/omarzblog.gnuvernment.org
Found command: provision verify
Initializing drush commandfile: provision_apache
Initializing drush commandfile: provision_drupal
Initializing drush commandfile: provision_mysql
Including /var/hostmaster/.drush/provision/web_server/verify.provision.inc
Including /var/hostmaster/.drush/provision/platform/verify.provision.inc
Including /var/hostmaster/.drush/provision/db_server/verify.provision.inc
Could not connect to the master database.
An error occurred at function : drush_provision_mysql_provision_verify_validate
Command dispatch complete
Removing task from hosting queue
An error occurred at function : drush_hosting_hosting_task
Changes for drush_hosting_hosting_task module have been rolled back.
Command dispatch complete

Running the task manually works, however:

sh-3.1$ /var/hostmaster/drush/drush.php --verbose=2 --debug --uri=http://hostmaster.koumbit.net/ hosting task 1582
Drush bootstrap phase : _drush_bootstrap_drupal_root() [0.061 sec]   [bootstrap]
Loading drushrc "/var/hostmaster/drupal-6.12/drushrc.php" into       [bootstrap]
"drupal" scope. [0.062 sec]
Initialized Drupal 6.12 root directory at /var/hostmaster/drupal-6.12   [notice]
[0.087 sec]
Drush bootstrap phase : _drush_bootstrap_drupal_site() [0.092 sec]   [bootstrap]
Initialized Drupal site hostmaster.koumbit.net at                       [notice]
sites/hostmaster.koumbit.net [0.17 sec]
Loading drushrc                                                      [bootstrap]
"/var/hostmaster/drupal-6.12/sites/hostmaster.koumbit.net/drushrc.php"
into "site" scope. [0.171 sec]
Drush bootstrap phase : _drush_bootstrap_drupal_configuration() [0.2 [bootstrap]
sec]
Drush bootstrap phase : _drush_bootstrap_drupal_database() [0.215    [bootstrap]
sec]
Successfully connected to the Drupal database. [0.216 sec]           [bootstrap]
Drush bootstrap phase : _drush_bootstrap_drupal_full() [0.231 sec]   [bootstrap]
Found command: hosting task [1.153 sec]                              [bootstrap]
Initializing drush commandfile: provision_apache [1.153 sec]         [bootstrap]
Initializing drush commandfile: provision_drupal [1.155 sec]         [bootstrap]
Initializing drush commandfile: provision_mysql [1.156 sec]          [bootstrap]
Including profiles/hostmaster/modules/hosting/task.hosting.inc [1.157[bootstrap]
sec]
Drush bootstrap phase : _drush_bootstrap_drupal_login() [1.159 sec]  [bootstrap]
Task starts processing [1.279 sec]                                       [queue]
Running: php /var/hostmaster/drush/drush.php                           [command]
...

And the platform verifies properly. There's probably a flag not being passed around properly, but I can't tell where...