A new twist on the failure to verify problem

I didn't start using google sitemaps until yesterday - i.e. after the
change to using lower case verification and after the queuing for
failed verifications was introduced.

I added a site to my account, uploaded the verification file and got
the message that the system was busy and verification was pending. I've
tried pressing the verify button again a few more times since and the
same problem occurs each time. However, the weblogs show a sucessful
HEAD request to the verification file from googlebot immediately each
time I press the button.

Today, I tried adding the same site a second time but this time I
dropped the "www." from the front of the URL. It gave me exactly the
same filename for the verification file as the first time around, so I
clicked verify and it went straight through sucessfully. However, with
the same verification file on the same site using the URL with a "www."
it still consistently fails to verify and remains in the pending
status.

The site has no robots.txt or sitemaps (yet) and runs on a single
server. The failed enty in the weblog looks identical to the sucessful
one and came from the same googlebot server:

66.249.65.199 - - [25/Dec/2005:05:57:27 -0800] "HEAD
/googleXXXXXXXXXXXX.html HTTP/1.1" 200 0 "-" "Mozilla/5.0 (compatible;
Googlebot/2.1; +http://www.google.com/bot.html)"

(filename replaced with XXX's)