It was a forgotten ltime->neg=0 (neg was the only forgotten variable).
I scanned field.cc for other places where we would forget to set neg, found none.
A test for the bug.

   (declarations should be on top of a block)

into deer.(none):/home/hf/work/mysql-4.1-w1284

WL#1284 (warnings about --skip-name-resolve)
Messages corrected

  Removed FLUSH_REMOVE flag (replaced it by FLUSH_RELEASE).
my_sys.h:
  Removed FLUSH_REMOVE flag.

  Fixed typo that caused blocking key cache usage after resize.
  Removed wrong re-initialization of resize queue in init_key_cache.

  Fixed a bug: missing semicolon.

into rurik.mysql.com:/home/igor/mysql-4.1

into rurik.mysql.com:/home/igor/mysql-4.1

into sanja.is.com.ua:/home/bell/mysql/bk/work-union-4.1

temporary table BLOB now is longblob

  Added resize key cache test.

into rurik.mysql.com:/home/igor/dev/mysql-4.1-2

  ibbackup --apply-log must be able to rename a table based only on the space id

into mysql.com:/home/kostja/mysql/mysql-4.1-root

into hundin.mysql.fi:/home/heikki/mysql-4.1

  Fix for the resize key cache operation.

  Changes needed for ibbackup directory scanning fault tolerance

into serg.mylan:/usr/home/serg/Abk/mysql-4.1

   after it was removed from manual.texi (where it was automatically
   generated from).

It can appear as a result of manual modifications with INSERT/UPDATE/DELETE

This script converts privilege table to the state that could be created
with GRANT commands only (with the exception of the short password)

This is necessary for 5.0

"You can always mysql_real_query a query with placeholders 
after mysql_prepare()"

libexec support in install_test_db
--start-from in mysql-test-run

  Marko's patch: check the position of some system table columns already at C compile time

   confuses RPM's Perl module dependency checking (it adds a bogus
   requirement to "Perl(the)", as "use" is a Perl keyword). (BUG#1931)

into mysql.com:/space/my/mysql-4.0-build

(see fulltext.test)

into mysql.com:/my/mysql-4.1

did not call get_one_option().

did not call get_one_option().

into mysql.com:/my/mysql-4.1

into sanja.is.com.ua:/home/bell/mysql/bk/work-union-4.1