This warning: /var/run/utmp: No such file or directory is printed on startup, using the updated screen package (screen-3.7.6-9)
Do you have a /var/run/utmp? Say, you wouldn't happen to be running initscripts-4.19, would you? ;) (it works OK for me here...)
Yep, I'm running initscripts-4.19-1. Is there a problem with it?
Oops, didn't answer your first question. I do not have a /var/run/utmp.
Creating an empty /var/run/utmp seems to fix this... is there a bug in initscripts 4.19 that can cause utmp to be deleted?
Yes. It's fixed in later initscripts (if you want to fix it yourself, edit rc.sysinit so the section that creates utmp/wtmp/etc. files is *after* the section that cleans out /var/run. :) )