BUG #5011: Standby recovery unable to follow timeline change

The following bug has been logged online:

Bug reference: 5011
Logged by: James Bardin
Email address: jbardin(at)bu(dot)edu
PostgreSQL version: 8.4.0-1
Operating system: Centos 5.3
Description: Standby recovery unable to follow timeline change
Details:

This is another use case that fails with what looks like the same issue as
BUG #4796.
http://archives.postgresql.org/pgsql-bugs/2009-05/msg00060.php
(Sorry if this bug is redundant, I couldn't find any way to contribute to
that thread directly)

I'm working on a system where the master and standby servers are expected to
be able to swap roles repeatedly. The first failover works fine, but the
ex-master, now standby, can't recover using the shipped logs.

Using recovery_target_timeline='latest' finds the new history file, and
pg_standby looks good until recovery is attempted. Then we log errors like:

LOG: unexpected timeline ID 0 in log file 0, segment 1, offset 0
LOG: invalid primary checkpoint record

and any changes made after the first failover are lost.

Is this currently possible, or do I have to send a full file-level backup to
sync the ex-master server with the new master?