Smoke, old man this was a test question for you folks, I knew what was going on (the flame when it finally got lit was telling me that the air flow wasn't quite up to snuff).
Never assume an old one like me still remembers from one day to the next how to do anything, the wife maintains that the skillet isn't doing the job it used to
.
What was surprising was normally I'd expect to see smoking take place in the firebox and an audible noise when it finally lit off, there was white smoke outside but I didn't see any inside the fire box. Maybe my eyes are going but as of a couple weeks ago they worked well enough to hit the target I was aiming at.
I've had the stove do a delayed ignition when some crud got trapped between the first igniter that was on it and the tube the igniter sits inside of. It smoked and lit off with a whoosh.
Don, this time of year I don't think I can get the stove room below 60
in the middle of the winter I can get it in the upper 50's. Not quite cold enough to experience your CSS issue, this stove seems to pull a lot of air through it in startup mode.
BTW how is the insulation project going? I've got to snap some pictures and start a thread in DIY on interior storms. I haven't quite got one finished and want to show the various stages in the process. I had to open up my foam rolls and decompress them as they are shipped really compressed and if left in that state for more than 60 days may not be usable. It was fun unrolling and loose rolling it.