Steps to reproduce with no init file: 1) Start the daemon with either emacs --daemon or the systemd unit. 2) Invoke emacsclient either with the -t or -c switch. 3) Following message is displayed when the frame is created: undefined: KEY must be an integer, cons, symbol, or string In GNU Emacs 27.0.50 (build 1, x86_64-pc-linux-gnu, GTK+ Version 3.24.12, cairo version 1.16.0) of 2019-11-08 built on lambda Repository revision: 5761a1a3939e23d8e8c725241dd9398a12f191b0 Repository branch: master Windowing system distributor 'The X.Org Foundation', version 11.0.12004000 System Description: Debian GNU/Linux bullseye/sid Recent messages: Starting Emacs daemon. When done with this frame, type C-x 5 0 undefined: KEY must be an integer, cons, symbol, or string Configured using: 'configure 'CFLAGS=-march=native -O2 -pipe -fstack-protector-strong -fno-plt' --prefix=/home/drot/.local '--program-transform-name=s/^ctags$/ctags.emacs/' --with-cairo --enable-link-time-optimization --disable-gcc-warnings' Configured features: XPM JPEG TIFF GIF PNG RSVG CAIRO SOUND GPM DBUS GSETTINGS GLIB NOTIFY INOTIFY ACL LIBSELINUX GNUTLS LIBXML2 FREETYPE HARFBUZZ M17N_FLT LIBOTF ZLIB TOOLKIT_SCROLL_BARS GTK3 X11 XDBE XIM MODULES THREADS LIBSYSTEMD JSON PDUMPER LCMS2 GMP Important settings: value of $LANG: en_US.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 file-name-shadow-mode: t global-font-lock-mode: t font-lock-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 server tooltip eldoc electric uniquify ediff-hook vc-hooks lisp-float-type mwheel term/x-win x-win term/common-win x-dnd 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 dbusbind inotify lcms2 dynamic-setting system-font-setting font-render-setting cairo move-toolbar gtk x-toolkit x multi-tty make-network-process emacs) Memory information: ((conses 16 44882 6017) (symbols 48 6075 1) (strings 32 15608 1349) (string-bytes 1 530848) (vectors 16 10318) (vector-slots 8 129049 9646) (floats 8 24 25) (intervals 56 195 0) (buffers 1000 12))