### Please describe the problem.

Some time in may 2014, git-annex stopped working with previous versions of git-annex.

### What steps will reproduce the problem?

Trying to sync with the server fails with:

    git-annex-shell: Not a git-annex or gcrypt repository.

With older versions (e.g. 5.20140412), it's even worse:

    Remote marcos does not have git-annex installed; setting annex-ignore
    This could be a problem with the git-annex installation on the remote. Please make sure that git-annex-shell is available in PATH when you ssh into the remote. Once you have fixed the git-annex installation, run: git config remote.marcos.annex-ignore false

Basically, if git-annex-shell is missing, newer versions of git-annex just crash and burn instead of going the more gentle, backward-compatible way...

### What version of git-annex are you using? On what operating system?

git-annex from debian sid (5.20140517) on the "client" side and from jessie (5.20140421) on the "server".

### Please provide any additional information below.

[[!format sh """
# If you can, paste a complete transcript of the problem occurring here.
# If the problem is with the git-annex assistant, paste in .git/annex/daemon.log
ssh server
git init books
exit
git remote add server server:books
git annex sync server
# End of transcript or log.
"""]]

If this is intended behavior, it seems to me the major version of git annex should be bumped, at the very least... -- [[anarcat]]

> [[done]], seems operator error --[[Joey]]