Sorry, poor choice of terminology. What I meant to say was that if I
*install* auctex after loading my init.el file, I get that error in
compilation, while I do not in an emacs -q session. So I've installed
auctex using emacs -q and then everything is fine.

init files attached.


On Tue, Jul 25, 2023 at 9:34 AM Tassilo Horn <tsdh@gnu.org> wrote:

> Roger Lipsett <roger.lipsett@gmail.com> writes:
>
> Hi Roger,
>
> > You are correct; that was not the cause of the problem; I wrote you
> > all too early. In fact, after lots of experimentation, it appears that
> > if I try to load-package auctex in a standard emacs server (that is,
> > after loading my init.el file), things fail as described above, while
> > if I load it in an emacs -q session, everything works properly.
>
> That means, the culprit is in your init file, maybe popping in only in
> combination with the emacs server.  To remove the "maybe", does it work
> when just starting emacs (with no server but also not with -q)?  Also,
> does "emacs --debug-init" show some error?
>
> > I can definitely reproduce this behavior. So my environment is now
> > where I want it to be.
>
> You want an error when using the server?
>
> > But if you want more information (such as my init files), I'm happy to
> > provide it.
>
> Yes, please.
>
> Bye,
> Tassilo
>