Interesting.
This reminds me of a puzzling issue I recently had while working on the
Nyxt .asd:

- (asdf:load-asd "/path/to/nyxt.asd")
- (asdf:make :nyxt/quicklisp)

The nyxt/quicklisp system would call ql:update-dist and then would fail,
saying it cannot find "nyxt/quicklisp" (which it is running!)
because ql:update-dist would lead ASDF to somehow forget about the .asd.

Adding (asdf:load-asd "/path/to/nyxt.asd") right after ql:update-dist
fixes it.

I've reworked the whole thing different on Nyxt's master branch, so this
is no longer an issue.

Maybe there is a hint lurking in there...

-- 
Pierre Neidhardt
https://ambrevar.xyz/