version ranges don't work after a day has passed

dependency A has a range dependency on B
my project has a dependency on A (not directly on B)
I build my project with a fresh clean repo (i.e. rm -rf ~/.m2/repository)
B's latest is downloaded as expected
the next morning I rebuild my project and I get error messages that no suitable version can be found;

No versions are present in the repository for the artifact with a range [1.02b,) com.lowagie:itext-null.jar

the particulars are jfreereports depending on [1.02b,) of lowagie.