This was discovered in `haskell-mode` [1]. The documentation of define-obsolete-face-alias claims that `when` is optional, but the macro definition does not follow the docs. This patch fixes the problem. In GNU Emacs 27.0.50 (build 1, x86_64-apple-darwin19.2.0, NS appkit-1894.20 Version 10.15.2 (Build 19C57)) of 2019-12-19 built on moomin.local Repository revision: f38e8a86650e8a7f72293d81a7392289c298ae5a Repository branch: fix_define-obsolete-face-alias_optional Windowing system distributor 'Apple', version 10.3.1894 System Description: Mac OS X 10.15.2 Recent messages: For information about GNU Emacs and the GNU system, type C-h C-a. user-error: The mark is not set now, so there is no region Making completion list... Configured features: NOTIFY KQUEUE ACL GNUTLS LIBXML2 ZLIB TOOLKIT_SCROLL_BARS NS MODULES THREADS PDUMPER LCMS2 GMP Important settings: value of $LANG: en_CA.UTF-8 locale-coding-system: utf-8-unix Major mode: Lisp Interaction Minor modes in effect: tooltip-mode: t global-eldoc-mode: t eldoc-mode: t electric-indent-mode: t mouse-wheel-mode: t tool-bar-mode: t menu-bar-mode: t file-name-shadow-mode: t global-font-lock-mode: t font-lock-mode: t blink-cursor-mode: t auto-composition-mode: t auto-encryption-mode: t auto-compression-mode: t line-number-mode: t transient-mark-mode: t Load-path shadows: None found. Features: (shadow sort mail-extr emacsbug message rmc puny dired dired-loaddefs format-spec rfc822 mml easymenu mml-sec password-cache epa derived epg epg-config gnus-util rmail rmail-loaddefs text-property-search time-date subr-x seq byte-opt gv bytecomp byte-compile cconv mm-decode mm-bodies mm-encode mail-parse rfc2231 mailabbrev gmm-utils mailheader cl-loaddefs cl-lib sendmail rfc2047 rfc2045 ietf-drums mm-util mail-prsvr mail-utils tooltip eldoc electric uniquify ediff-hook vc-hooks lisp-float-type mwheel term/ns-win ns-win ucs-normalize mule-util term/common-win tool-bar dnd fontset image regexp-opt fringe tabulated-list replace newcomment text-mode elisp-mode lisp-mode prog-mode register page tab-bar menu-bar rfn-eshadow isearch timer select scroll-bar mouse jit-lock font-lock syntax facemenu font-core term/tty-colors frame minibuffer cl-generic cham georgian utf-8-lang misc-lang vietnamese tibetan thai tai-viet lao korean japanese eucjp-ms cp51932 hebrew greek romanian slovak czech european ethiopic indian cyrillic chinese composite charscript charprop case-table epa-hook jka-cmpr-hook help simple abbrev obarray cl-preloaded nadvice loaddefs button faces cus-face macroexp files text-properties overlay sha1 md5 base64 format env code-pages mule custom widget hashtable-print-readable backquote threads kqueue cocoa ns lcms2 multi-tty make-network-process emacs) Memory information: ((conses 16 43939 6393) (symbols 48 5909 1) (strings 32 15245 1247) (string-bytes 1 502913) (vectors 16 9297) (vector-slots 8 118962 11572) (floats 8 20 25) (intervals 56 185 0) (buffers 1000 12)) [1] https://github.com/haskell/haskell-mode/issues/1691