bug#44472: 27.1; emacsclient 27.1 unable to properly start & connect to emacs server via: emacsclient -a '' -c

[Al G]

=============================================================================
[Start of bug report]
In emacs 27.1, the command:
   emacsclient -a '' -c  & 

Doesn't anymore start emacs as a daemon server. This is critical,
because many people use emacsclient in this manner to optionally start
the server if it doesn't exist, and simply connect to it if it's already
running. Please fix this, or at least backout the changes that broke
emacsclient.

CYG:[alg@agwindog:1:~]
$ pgrep -l -f emacs

CYG:[alg@agwindog:1:~]
$ emacsclient -a '' -c  &
[1] 2028

CYG:[alg@agwindog:1:~]
$ emacsclient: can't find socket; have you started the server?
emacsclient: To start the server in Emacs, type "M-x server-start".
Loading /home/alg/.emacs.d/lisp/etags-select.el (source)...
Loading /home/alg/.emacs.d/lisp/etags-select.el (source)...done
Loading font-lock...
Loading font-lock...done
Starting Emacs daemon.


^C

CYG:[alg@agwindog:1:~]
$ pgrep -l -f emacs
2030 emacs-w32
2029 emacs-w32
2028 emacsclient


[End of bug report]
=============================================================================


In GNU Emacs 27.1 (build 1, x86_64-pc-cygwin)
 of 2020-10-29 built on moufang2
Repository revision: 14432a33511ec750815c6f3b188f2c0d21b4cb22
Repository branch: master
Windowing system distributor 'Microsoft Corp.', version 6.3.9600
Recent messages:
Loading /home/alg/.emacs.d/lisp/etags-select.el (source)...done
Loading font-lock...done
For information about GNU Emacs and the GNU system, type C-x h C-a.
next-line: End of buffer
Sending...
Save this mail sending choice? (y or n) n
Sending...done

Configured using:
 'configure
 --srcdir=/home/kbrown/src/cygpackages/emacs/emacs-27.1-2.x86_64/src/emacs-27.1
 --prefix=/usr --exec-prefix=/usr --localstatedir=/var --sysconfdir=/etc
 --docdir=/usr/share/doc/emacs --htmldir=/usr/share/doc/emacs/html -C
 --with-w32 'CFLAGS=-ggdb -O2 -pipe -Wall -Werror=format-security
 -Wp,-D_FORTIFY_SOURCE=2 -fstack-protector-strong
 --param=ssp-buffer-size=4
 
-fdebug-prefix-map=/home/kbrown/src/cygpackages/emacs/emacs-27.1-2.x86_64/build=/usr/src/debug/emacs-27.1-2
 
-fdebug-prefix-map=/home/kbrown/src/cygpackages/emacs/emacs-27.1-2.x86_64/src/emacs-27.1=/usr/src/debug/emacs-27.1-2'
 CPPFLAGS= LDFLAGS='

Configured features:
XPM JPEG TIFF GIF PNG SOUND DBUS GLIB NOTIFY GFILENOTIFY ACL GNUTLS
LIBXML2 HARFBUZZ ZLIB TOOLKIT_SCROLL_BARS XIM MODULES THREADS JSON
PDUMPER LCMS2 GMP

Important settings:
  value of $LC_CTYPE: en_US.UTF-8
  value of $LANG: en_US.UTF-8
  locale-coding-system: utf-8-unix

Major mode: Lisp Interaction

Minor modes in effect:
  show-paren-mode: t
  display-time-mode: t
  tooltip-mode: t
  global-eldoc-mode: t
  eldoc-mode: t
  mouse-wheel-mode: t
  tool-bar-mode: t
  menu-bar-mode: t
  file-name-shadow-mode: t
  global-font-lock-mode: t
  font-lock-mode: t
  blink-cursor-mode: t
  auto-composition-mode: t
  auto-encryption-mode: t
  auto-compression-mode: t
  column-number-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 mml-sec epa derived epg epg-config gnus-util
rmail rmail-loaddefs text-property-search mm-decode mm-bodies mm-encode
mailabbrev gmm-utils mailheader mailclient mail-parse rfc2231 sendmail
rfc2047 rfc2045 ietf-drums mm-util mail-prsvr mail-utils time-date paren
etags-select advice etags fileloop generator xref project ring time
wheatgrass-theme edmacro kmacro finder-inf info package easymenu
browse-url url-handlers url-parse auth-source cl-seq eieio eieio-core
cl-macs eieio-loaddefs password-cache json subr-x map url-vars seq
byte-opt gv bytecomp byte-compile cconv cl-loaddefs cl-lib tooltip eldoc
electric uniquify ediff-hook vc-hooks lisp-float-type mwheel disp-table
term/w32-win w32-win w32-vars term/common-win 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
gfilenotify w32 lcms2 multi-tty make-network-process emacs)

Memory information:
((conses 16 74907 12011)
 (symbols 48 9176 1)
 (strings 32 27119 2052)
 (string-bytes 1 849402)
 (vectors 16 15232)
 (vector-slots 8 192159 10678)
 (floats 8 35 38)
 (intervals 56 268 0)
 (buffers 1000 12))