This has been my repeated experience as well and is one of the main reasons I now take a white gas stove with me on my few cold weather trips.

I spent six months "camping out" in Antarctica. A lot of people working there prefer to use kerosine stoves; I quickly developed a preference for white gas. The hassle factor with white gas was less primarily because alcohol priming was not needed. Moreover, kerosine seems to migrate somehow to add odor to sleeping gear and add a piquant tang to one's food. And, we used white gas stoves in tents. We would get them going outside and then move them into the tent for cooking and snow melting. If the weather was such that outside start-ups were not feasible then we would fire them up inside very carefully.

After a few experiences, first with the old Bluet "puncture" canisters, and more recently with the modern canisters and their gas mixes, I decided the hassle of using canister stoves in cold weather was better left to those with more patience than I have.