>
> However, if this used to work,
>

This used to work indeed; it worked on GNU/Linux with default (non-Cairo) 
builds for Emacs 24 to 27.

>
> it would be good to understand which change broke it.
>

Got it! :-)  The commit I identified is indeed the culprit.  With 
USE_CAIRO, gui_init_fringe() is called in x_initialize(); without 
USE_CAIRO it isn't.  And gui_init_fringe() had a bug, which should now be 
fixed on Windows, too.  Patch attached.