To reproduce the behavior we can not use 'emacs -Q', but otherwise the bug is very simple. From a clean Emacs install simply install some package. Now on (normal) startup (and `package-enable-at-startup` is t) the packages get initialized before evaluating 'init.el' (indeed after installing a single package, the package-alist wil be populated). However, the value of `package--initialized` is still nil (and I guess it should be t now). This report is related to a subsequent bug report that I will send directly after this one. In GNU Emacs 29.1 (build 1, x86_64-pc-linux-gnu, GTK+ Version 3.24.38, cairo version 1.17.8) of 2023-08-09 built on 2a02-a45d-af56-1-666c-72af-583a-b92d.fixed6.kpn.net Repository revision: 31cef9a4eac01fff5ff4fcb89d7e2b7815e93bad Repository branch: HEAD System Description: Fedora Linux 38 (Workstation Edition) Configured using: 'configure --with-tree-sitter --with-modules --with-cairo --with-native-compilation --with-json --with-pgtk' Configured features: ACL CAIRO DBUS FREETYPE GIF GLIB GMP GNUTLS GSETTINGS HARFBUZZ JPEG JSON LIBSELINUX LIBXML2 MODULES NATIVE_COMP NOTIFY INOTIFY PDUMPER PGTK PNG RSVG SECCOMP SOUND SQLITE3 THREADS TIFF TOOLKIT_SCROLL_BARS TREE_SITTER XIM GTK3 ZLIB Important settings: value of $LANG: en_US.UTF-8 value of $XMODIFIERS: @im=ibus locale-coding-system: utf-8-unix Major mode: Fundamental Minor modes in effect: tooltip-mode: t global-eldoc-mode: t show-paren-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 blink-cursor-mode: t buffer-read-only: t line-number-mode: t indent-tabs-mode: t transient-mark-mode: t auto-composition-mode: t auto-encryption-mode: t auto-compression-mode: t Load-path shadows: None found. Features: (shadow sort mail-extr emacsbug message yank-media puny dired dired-loaddefs rfc822 mml mml-sec epa derived epg rfc6068 epg-config gnus-util text-property-search time-date mm-decode mm-bodies mm-encode mail-parse rfc2231 mailabbrev gmm-utils mailheader sendmail rfc2047 rfc2045 ietf-drums mm-util mail-prsvr mail-utils comp comp-cstr warnings icons rx cl-extra help-mode info evil-autoloads package browse-url url url-proxy url-privacy url-expand url-methods url-history url-cookie generate-lisp-file url-domsuf url-util mailcap url-handlers url-parse auth-source cl-seq eieio eieio-core cl-macs password-cache json subr-x map byte-opt gv bytecomp byte-compile url-vars cl-loaddefs cl-lib rmc iso-transl tooltip cconv eldoc paren electric uniquify ediff-hook vc-hooks lisp-float-type elisp-mode mwheel term/pgtk-win pgtk-win term/common-win pgtk-dnd tool-bar dnd fontset image regexp-opt fringe tabulated-list replace newcomment text-mode lisp-mode prog-mode register page tab-bar menu-bar rfn-eshadow isearch easymenu timer select scroll-bar mouse jit-lock font-lock syntax font-core term/tty-colors frame minibuffer nadvice seq simple cl-generic indonesian philippine 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 emoji-zwj charscript charprop case-table epa-hook jka-cmpr-hook help abbrev obarray oclosure cl-preloaded button loaddefs theme-loaddefs faces cus-face macroexp files window text-properties overlay sha1 md5 base64 format env code-pages mule custom widget keymap hashtable-print-readable backquote threads dbusbind inotify dynamic-setting system-font-setting font-render-setting cairo gtk pgtk multi-tty make-network-process native-compile emacs) Memory information: ((conses 16 112973 6385) (symbols 48 8729 0) (strings 32 30958 2801) (string-bytes 1 969890) (vectors 16 22797) (vector-slots 8 425568 11280) (floats 8 41 19) (intervals 56 346 0) (buffers 984 12))