Requiring user-installed packages from byte-compiled .emacs

Question

I have the following in my .emacs.el:

(when (require 'edit-server nil t)
  (custom-set-variables
   '(edit-server-default-major-mode 'markdown-mode)
   '(edit-server-new-frame nil))
  (edit-server-start))

The file is byte compiled, so what is actually loaded is .emacs.elc.

edit-server is installed using the package system (package-list-packages).

When I start Emacs,

• edit-server is not running
• (featurep 'edit-server) is nil
• the variables are not set.

When I open .emacs.el and evaluate the when form, the server is started.

When I load .emacs.elc from dired right after starting emacs, the server is started.

When I start emacs -q, no matter how many times I load .emacs.elc, the server is not started.

So, why can't I start the server this way?

Answer 1

Experiments revealed that byte-compilation was a red herring - it did not affect the behavior.

It turned out that I must have (package-initialize) before requireing any packages.