Startup script generated by SBT packager doesn't work - sbt

Question

I have an SBT project that uses a pure-Java plugin to create a Debian package. The plugin is defined in plugins.sbt as such:
libraryDependencies += "org.vafer" % "jdeb" % "1.5" artifacts (Artifact("jdeb", "jar", "jar"))
In the SBT console, I execute this command:
debian:packageBin
This generates a .deb file which I am attempting to install on an Ubuntu machine using dpkg -i <filename>
The package installs. The libraries and configuration etc. are placed in /usr/share/, which is what I expected. That folder also includes a bin folder with a script that directly starts the program. So far so good.
However, I want to start the program using service start <projectname>, which doesn't work. Same goes for /etc/init.d/<projectname> start. The output for the latter command is:
[ ok ] Starting undagrid-api-server (via systemctl): undagrid-api-server.service.
But the process isn't running when I check it with ps. Here's the contents of /etc/init.d/<projectname>
#! /bin/bash
### BEGIN INIT INFO
# Provides: <projectname>
# Required-Start: $remote_fs $syslog
# Required-Stop: $remote_fs $syslog
# Default-Start: 2 3 4 5
# Default-Stop: 0 1 6
# Short-Description: <projectname>
### END INIT INFO
source /lib/init/vars.sh
source /lib/lsb/init-functions
# adding bashScriptEnvConfigLocation
[[ -f /etc/default/<projectname> ]] && . /etc/default/<projectname>
# $JAVA_OPTS used in $RUN_CMD wrapper
export JAVA_OPTS
PIDFILE=/var/run/<projectname>/running.pid
if [ -z "$DAEMON_USER" ]; then
DAEMON_USER=<projectname>
fi
if [ -z "$DAEMON_GROUP" ]; then
DAEMON_GROUP=<projectname>
fi
RUN_CMD="/usr/share/<projectname>/bin/<projectname>"
start_daemon() {
log_daemon_msg "Starting" "<projectname>"
[ -d "/var/run/<projectname>" ] || install -d -o "$DAEMON_USER" -g "$DAEMON_GROUP" -m755 "/var/run/<projectname>"
start-stop-daemon --background --chdir /usr/share/<projectname> --chuid "$DAEMON_USER" --make-pidfile --pidfile "$PIDFILE" --startas "$RUN_CMD" --start -- $RUN_OPTS
log_end_msg $?
}
stop_daemon() {
log_daemon_msg "Stopping" "<projectname>"
start-stop-daemon --stop --quiet --oknodo --pidfile "$PIDFILE" --retry=TERM/60/KILL/30
log_end_msg $?
rm -f "$PIDFILE"
}
case "$1" in
start)
start_daemon
exit $?
;;
stop)
stop_daemon
exit $?
;;
restart|force-reload)
stop_daemon
start_daemon
exit $?
;;
status)
status_of_proc -p "$PIDFILE" "$RUN_CMD" <projectname> && exit 0 || exit $?
;;
*)
log_daemon_msg "Usage: /etc/init.d/<projectname> {start|stop|restart|status}"
;;
esac
exit 0
With some simple debugging I have found out that if the command line argument is "start", the script never makes it past the second source statement: source /lib/lsb/init-functions
Systemctl gives me the following output:
<projectname>.service loaded active exited LSB: <projectname>
I have also run the script using bash -x but that produces quite a pile of output that I don't really know how to read.
Anybody know what's going on here? The entire point of using a packager and installing it as a package is to avoid headaches like these...