lib/PublicInbox/LEI.pm         | 2 +-
 lib/PublicInbox/LeiAuth.pm     | 1 -
 lib/PublicInbox/LeiExternal.pm | 6 +++---

diff --git a/lib/PublicInbox/LEI.pm b/lib/PublicInbox/LEI.pm
index 73c9e267b1e4a37ef742f0e56b10d3655f6cf4b9..dd34c66879fd9c4a08f0c9445c9c24d45afd5add 100644
--- a/lib/PublicInbox/LEI.pm
+++ b/lib/PublicInbox/LEI.pm
@@ -592,7 +592,7 @@ 	}
 	if (!@st) {
 		unless ($creat) {
 			delete $self->{cfg};
-			return;
+			return bless {}, 'PublicInbox::Config';
 		}
 		my (undef, $cfg_dir, undef) = File::Spec->splitpath($f);
 		-d $cfg_dir or mkpath($cfg_dir) or die "mkpath($cfg_dir): $!\n";
diff --git a/lib/PublicInbox/LeiAuth.pm b/lib/PublicInbox/LeiAuth.pm
index f2cdb0260a766147fd3d08478ad13ad32755f758..5d321be22f337f33282265628a83d890bfed9509 100644
--- a/lib/PublicInbox/LeiAuth.pm
+++ b/lib/PublicInbox/LeiAuth.pm
@@ -42,7 +42,6 @@ }
 
 sub auth_start {
 	my ($self, $lei, $post_auth_cb, @args) = @_;
-	$lei->_lei_cfg(1); # workers may need to read config
 	my $op = $lei->workers_start($self, 'auth', 1, {
 		'net_merge' => [ \&net_merge, $lei ],
 		'' => [ \&auth_eof, $lei, $post_auth_cb, @args ],
diff --git a/lib/PublicInbox/LeiExternal.pm b/lib/PublicInbox/LeiExternal.pm
index 6cc2e671d9eb4d9b789de6a3310fcf77bbfb1319..0cc84ccaec3b6b4823a5cbd260c6687823968b04 100644
--- a/lib/PublicInbox/LeiExternal.pm
+++ b/lib/PublicInbox/LeiExternal.pm
@@ -9,7 +9,7 @@ use PublicInbox::Config;
 
 sub externals_each {
 	my ($self, $cb, @arg) = @_;
-	my $cfg = $self->_lei_cfg(0);
+	my $cfg = $self->_lei_cfg;
 	my %boost;
 	for my $sec (grep(/\Aexternal\./, @{$cfg->{-section_order}})) {
 		my $loc = substr($sec, length('external.'));
@@ -234,7 +234,7 @@
 # shell completion helper called by lei__complete
 sub _complete_forget_external {
 	my ($self, @argv) = @_;
-	my $cfg = $self->_lei_cfg(0);
+	my $cfg = $self->_lei_cfg;
 	my ($cur, $re) = _complete_url_common(\@argv);
 	# FIXME: bash completion off "http:" or "https:" when the last
 	# character is a colon doesn't work properly even if we're
@@ -250,7 +250,7 @@ }
 
 sub _complete_add_external { # for bash, this relies on "compopt -o nospace"
 	my ($self, @argv) = @_;
-	my $cfg = $self->_lei_cfg(0);
+	my $cfg = $self->_lei_cfg;
 	my ($cur, $re) = _complete_url_common(\@argv);
 	require URI;
 	map {