Conflict: index and try_files

[janedenone]

In the following simple configuration

server {
	server_name testsite.static;
	root /some/path/;
	index blog.html;
	try_files $uri $uri.html =404;
}

the try_files directive seems to interfere with the index directive: I
always get 404 for http://testsite.static/. If I remove the fallback
part of try_files, the same request results in an error:

 *990 rewrite or internal redirection cycle while internal redirect to
"/.html.html.html....

The file blog.html is present in /some/path/, so I really do not
understand why the file is not found/served for the above URL.

Posted at Nginx Forum: http://forum.nginx.org/read.php?2,218562,218562#msg-218562