Tramp prevents opening new frame while offline?

[yary]

I have an emacs session open with some remotely-edited files on it,
using tramp 2.1.16. There's no internet connection, and I want to open
a new frame to do some other, local work. But when I hit ^x52 instead
of a new frame I see this in the debugger- not sure how to fix the
core issue. It looks like opening a frame causes emacs to try to
verify the contents of the buffer, and since there's no connection, it
can't verify. An easy workaround is to open a local or temp buffer
before opening a new frame, but can tramp do anything to allow
"parent" operations to complete in this kind of situation?

Debugger entered--Lisp error: (file-error "Process died")
  signal(file-error ("Process died"))
  tramp-error(["plink" "yhluc00" "slsudv53"
"/appl/spool/devmsa/yhluc00/IDG/rpr_catprofile_p.ksh"] file-error
"Process died")
  apply(tramp-error ["plink" "yhluc00" "slsudv53"
"/appl/spool/devmsa/yhluc00/IDG/rpr_catprofile_p.ksh"] file-error
"Process died" nil)
  byte-code("\304\216\305\306  \n%)\207" [vec-or-proc signal
fmt-string args ((byte-code "\203-...
  tramp-process-actions(#<process *tramp/plink address@hidden>
["plink" "yhluc00" "slsudv53"
"/appl/spool/devmsa/yhluc00/IDG/rpr_catprofile_p.ksh"]
((tramp-login-prompt-regexp tramp-action-login)
(tramp-password-prompt-regexp tramp-action-password)
(tramp-wrong-passwd-regexp tramp-action-permission-denied)
(shell-prompt-pattern tramp-action-succeed)
(tramp-shell-prompt-pattern tramp-action-succeed)
(tramp-yesno-prompt-regexp tramp-action-yesno) (tramp-yn-prompt-regexp
tramp-action-yn) (tramp-terminal-prompt-regexp tramp-action-terminal)
(tramp-process-alive-regexp tramp-action-process-alive)) 60)
  byte-code(...
  tramp-maybe-open-connection(["plink" "yhluc00" "slsudv53"
"/appl/spool/devmsa/yhluc00/IDG/rpr_catprofile_p.ksh"])
  tramp-send-command(["plink" "yhluc00" "slsudv53"
"/appl/spool/devmsa/yhluc00/IDG/rpr_catprofile_p.ksh"] "test -e
/appl/spool/devmsa/yhluc00/IDG/rpr_catprofile_p.ksh 2>/dev/null; echo
tramp_exit_status $? ")
  tramp-send-command-and-check(["plink" "yhluc00" "slsudv53"
"/appl/spool/devmsa/yhluc00/IDG/rpr_catprofile_p.ksh"] "test -e
/appl/spool/devmsa/yhluc00/IDG/rpr_catprofile_p.ksh")
  
tramp-handle-file-exists-p("/plink:address@hidden:/appl/spool/devmsa/yhluc00/IDG/rpr_catprofile_p.ksh")
  apply(tramp-handle-file-exists-p
"/plink:address@hidden:/appl/spool/devmsa/yhluc00/IDG/rpr_catprofile_p.ksh")
  tramp-sh-file-name-handler(file-exists-p
"/plink:address@hidden:/appl/spool/devmsa/yhluc00/IDG/rpr_catprofile_p.ksh")
  apply(tramp-sh-file-name-handler file-exists-p
"/plink:address@hidden:/appl/spool/devmsa/yhluc00/IDG/rpr_catprofile_p.ksh")
  tramp-file-name-handler(file-exists-p
"/plink:address@hidden:/appl/spool/devmsa/yhluc00/IDG/rpr_catprofile_p.ksh")
  
file-exists-p("/plink:address@hidden:/appl/spool/devmsa/yhluc00/IDG/rpr_catprofile_p.ksh")
  
tramp-handle-file-attributes("/plink:address@hidden:/appl/spool/devmsa/yhluc00/IDG/rpr_catprofile_p.ksh")
  apply(tramp-handle-file-attributes
"/plink:address@hidden:/appl/spool/devmsa/yhluc00/IDG/rpr_catprofile_p.ksh")
  tramp-sh-file-name-handler(file-attributes
"/plink:address@hidden:/appl/spool/devmsa/yhluc00/IDG/rpr_catprofile_p.ksh")
  apply(tramp-sh-file-name-handler file-attributes
"/plink:address@hidden:/appl/spool/devmsa/yhluc00/IDG/rpr_catprofile_p.ksh")
  tramp-file-name-handler(file-attributes
"/plink:address@hidden:/appl/spool/devmsa/yhluc00/IDG/rpr_catprofile_p.ksh")
  
file-attributes("/plink:address@hidden:/appl/spool/devmsa/yhluc00/IDG/rpr_catprofile_p.ksh")
  tramp-handle-verify-visited-file-modtime(#<buffer rpr_catprofile_p.ksh>)
  apply(tramp-handle-verify-visited-file-modtime #<buffer rpr_catprofile_p.ksh>)
  tramp-sh-file-name-handler(verify-visited-file-modtime #<buffer
rpr_catprofile_p.ksh>)
  apply(tramp-sh-file-name-handler verify-visited-file-modtime
#<buffer rpr_catprofile_p.ksh>)
  tramp-file-name-handler(verify-visited-file-modtime #<buffer
rpr_catprofile_p.ksh>)
  verify-visited-file-modtime(#<buffer rpr_catprofile_p.ksh>)
  (not (verify-visited-file-modtime (current-buffer)))
  (or (buffer-modified-p) (not (verify-visited-file-modtime ...)))
  (and buffer-file-number (or (buffer-modified-p) (not ...)))
  (or revert-buffer-function
revert-buffer-insert-file-contents-function (and buffer-file-number
(or ... ...)))
  x-create-frame(((visibility)))
  x-create-frame-with-faces(nil)
  make-frame()
  make-frame-command()
  call-interactively(make-frame-command nil nil)