Alternatively, a complete recipe (without referring to directories
that I definitely don't have here) to reproduce the problem could
answer all those questions succinctly and efficiently.
Here it is
1. cd /tmp
3. cd org-mode
4. make autoloads
5. Create /tmp/bug.el with the following contents:
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(add-to-list 'load-path "/tmp/org-mode/lisp")
(require 'org)
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6. Create /tmp/
bug.org with the following contents:
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* TODO start clock on this test item
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7. emacs -Q /tmp/bug.el
8. M-x eval-buffer
10. Observe error in echo area
Note that doing emacs -Q -l /tmp/bug.el in step 7 does _not_ trigger the error.
Best,
Ihor