Oh, and here's the log from a failed session (without external APserver). I forgot to include it in my previous email:
Reading config file /home/emartenson/src/apl/dist/etc/gnu-apl.d/preferences ...
config file /home/emartenson/.config/gnu-apl/preferences is not present/readable
Network listener started. Connection information: mode:tcp addr:58991
connecting to 127.0.0.1 port 16366.
(this is expected to fail, unless APserver was started manually)
forking new APserver listening on TCP port 16366
connecting to 127.0.0.1 port 16366.
(this is supposed to succeed.)
::connect() to existing APserver failed: Connection refused
*** using local Svar_DB cache
PID is 23947
argc: 8
argv[0]: '/home/emartenson/src/apl/dist/bin/apl'
argv[1]: '--rawCIN'
argv[2]: '--emacs'
argv[3]: '-l'
argv[4]: '37'
argv[5]: '--emacs_arg'
argv[6]: '0'
argv[7]: '--silent'
uprefs.user_do_svars: 1
uprefs.system_do_svars: 1
uprefs.requested_id: 0
uprefs.requested_par: 0
id.proc: 1001 at ProcessorID.cc:72
APnnn_port: 0 at ProcessorID.cc:89
*** Failed to start APnnn: processor 1001 will not accept incoming shared variable offers. Expect surprises.