Autoupdate vs core fatal error – Why no disable?

I wish I could click an option to disable WP autoupdate. Something is blowing up in WP core, and an update removes the workaround.

Fatal error: Call to a member function get() on a non-object in /home/_[redacted]_/wp-includes/query.php on line 27

I found that a workaround is to change line 27 in query.php to make it more protective:

// return $wp_query->get($var);
    if(!is_null($wp_query)){
    return $wp_query->get($var);
}

I’m trying to find what triggers the error… but, of course, an autoupdate puts me back at having a site which emits errors instead of seeming to be working.