### Is there an existing issue for this?

- [X] I have searched the existing issues

### Current behaviour

I randomly encountered this by loading a wallet created from master with an older version. I could trace it down to bd13dc2f46ea10302a928fcf0f53b7aed77ad260 (#26076), but I don't know descriptor wallets enough to understand what's going on (cc @Sjors @achow101).

### Expected behaviour

`bitcoind` starts, or at least tells me to use a later version if #26076 was a breaking change instead of corrupting `wallet.dat`.

### Steps to reproduce

(master, clean chain): 
`createwallet -regtest ""`
(v25.0rc2):
first `bitcoind -regtest` succeeds
then stop and restart the node: The second `bitcoind -regtest` leads to an InitError:
`Error: Error: Unable to expand wallet descriptor from cache`
now, the wallet cannot be loaded by either version.

### Relevant log output

_No response_

### How did you obtain Bitcoin Core

Compiled from source

### What version of Bitcoin Core are you using?

v25.0rc2 / master

### Operating system and version

Ubuntu

### Machine specifications

_No response_
return nullptr;
    }
    
    if (!format && options.require_format) format = options.require_format;
    
    if (!format) {
#ifdef USE_SQLITE
        format = DatabaseFormat::SQLITE;
#endif
#ifdef USE_BDB
        format = DatabaseFormat::BERKELEY;
#endif
    }
    if (format == DatabaseFormat::SQLITE) {
#ifdef USE_SQLITE
        return MakeSQLiteDatabase(path, options, status, error);
#endif
        error = Untranslated(strprintf("Failed to open database path '%s'. Build does not support SQLite database format.", fs::PathToString(path)));
        status = DatabaseStatus::FAILED_BAD_FORMAT;
        return nullptr;
    }
#ifdef USE_BDB
    return MakeBerkeleyDatabase(path, options, status, error);
#endif
    error = Untranslated(strprintf("Failed to open database path '%s'. Build does not support Berkeley DB database format.", fs::PathToString(path)));
    status = DatabaseStatus::FAILED_BAD_FORMAT;
    return nullptr;
}
}