Sorry, yes, I meant function*s*.
Yes, evaluating that updates the custom.el fine.
I will edebug (probably later) to see why that is not getting executed from
within `package-install`.

On Thu, May 21, 2015 at 2:05 PM Artur Malabarba <bruce.connor.am@gmail.com>
wrote:

> > I edited package.el as per the diff of that commit and eval'd the
> changed function.
>
> You mean "functions", plural, right? There are two changed functions
> in that commit.
>
> Here's something to try. After you verify that the value of the var
> was updated but wasn't saved to custom.el, what happens if you
> evaluate the following?
>
>      (package--save-selected-packages package-selected-packages)
>
> Does the value then get saved properly?
>