21.2.9: Startup error

In XEmacs 21.2 (beta29) "Hestia" [Lucid] (i386-unknown-freebsdelf3.4) of Wed Feb 16 2000 on horsey.gshapiro.net configured using `configure --site-prefixes=/usr/local/pilot:/usr/local --with-pop --with-ldap --debug --compiler=gcc295' When trying to start beta28 and beta29, I get the following: (1) (initialization/error) An error has occurred while loading nil: Wrong type argument: stringp, nil To ensure normal operation, you should investigate the cause of the error in your initialization file and remove it. Use the `-debug-init' option to XEmacs to view a complete error backtrace. Using -debug-init yields a backtrace: Signaling: (wrong-type-argument stringp nil) load-internal(nil t t t nil nil) load(nil t t t) load-user-init-file() load-init-file() command-line() normal-top-level() Looking at load-user-init-file(), I see it loads user-init-file which is nil after this failure. find-user-init-file() is returning nil: *** Welcome to IELM *** Type (describe-mode) for help. ELISP> (find-user-init-file) nil ELISP> user-init-file-base-list (".emacs.elc" ".emacs.el" ".emacs") I don't have any of the above mentioned files. Perhaps load-user-init-file() should check before calling load(): (defun load-user-init-file () "This function actually reads the init file, .emacs." (if (not user-init-file) (setq user-init-file (find-user-init-file))) (if user-init-file (load user-init-file t t t)) (unless inhibit-default-init (let ((inhibit-startup-message nil)) ;; Users are supposed to be told their rights. ;; (Plus how to get help and how to undo.) ;; Don't you dare turn this off for anyone except yourself. (load "default" t t))))