### 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 m_batch->TxnBegin();
}
bool WalletBatch::TxnCommit()
{
    return m_batch->TxnCommit();
}
bool WalletBatch::TxnAbort()
{
    return m_batch->TxnAbort();
}
std::unique_ptr<WalletDatabase> MakeDatabase(const fs::path& path, const DatabaseOptions& options, DatabaseStatus& status, bilingual_str& error)
{
    bool exists;
    try {
        exists = fs::symlink_status(path).type() != fs::file_type::not_found;
    } catch (const fs::filesystem_error& e) {
        error = Untranslated(strprintf("Failed to access database path '%s': %s", fs::PathToString(path), fsbridge::get_filesystem_error_message(e)));
        status = DatabaseStatus::FAILED_BAD_PATH;
        return nullptr;
    }
    std::optional<DatabaseFormat> format;
    if (exists) {