Something

+ TOPDIR=/home/andy/work/Protium/protium-1.1/openprotium
+ for type in jffs2
+ test -z 175563252
+ bbimage -n openprotium-turbostation-20070301011531 -t jffs2 -e /home/andy/work/Protium/protium-1.1/openprotium/openembedded/packages/images/openprotium-image.bb
NOTE: Executing mkfs.jffs2 --root=/home/andy/work/Protium/protium-1.1/openprotium/tmp/rootfs --faketime --output=/home/andy/work/Protium/protium-1.1/openprotium/tmp/deploy/images/openprotium-turbostation-20070301011531.rootfs.jffs2 --pad --big-endian --eraseblock=0x20000 -D /home/andy/work/Protium/protium-1.1/openprotium/openembedded/files/device_table-slugos.txt
NOTE: SITE files /home/andy/work/Protium/protium-1.1/openprotium/openembedded/site/endian-big /home/andy/work/Protium/protium-1.1/openprotium/openembedded/site/powerpc-linux 
ERROR: function image_cmd failed
ERROR: see log in /home/andy/work/Protium/protium-1.1/openprotium/tmp/work/openprotium-image-1.0-r0/temp/log.image_cmd.24284


and here is the log.image_cmd file:

mkfs.jffs2: opening directory /home/andy/work/Protium/protium-1.1/openprotium/tmp/rootfs/etc/ipkg/arch.conf: Not a directory

the WIERD part is I can run (i.e. ./run.image_cmd.24284) and it works fine.
I can also extract and run the mkfs.jffs2 command with no error, and works fine.

So i think this is somehow bitbake collecting the wrong error message in the wrong place.