Sorry, I don't have time to investigate.
If you define this error handler --
(defun *error* (x) (vl-bt))
-- and then run your program you should be able to quickly determine the source of the problem.
it's a pity that this good advice appeared to be ignored.
Yep. That backtrace should point right to the problem.
The debugger can be immensely helpful, too, but last I checked, the VLIDE won't pop open to the site of the exception the way VS Express does for .NET programming. But single-stepping through the code should have turned it up pretty fast, too.
These tools are a programmer's best friend.