3.0.21 installed from source fails to parse /mods-config/files/authorize?

[Gleb Lisikh]

Installed 3.0.21 from source on Ubuntu18 (from scratch) and onCentOS7 over
previous working 3.0.20 instance, and in both cases got the following when
doing the "Initial Test"  radtest testing password 127.0.0.1 0 testing123 as
per https://wiki.freeradius.org/guide/Getting-Started

 (0) pap: WARNING: No "known good" password found for the user.  Not
 setting Auth-Type
 (0) pap: WARNING: Authentication will fail unless a "known good"  password is
available

Entry in  "users" ( /mods-config/files/authorize symlink)  file is updated
testing Cleartext-Password := "password"
users file is still a symlink.

Any advice why the radiusd seems to be ignoring the users file?

Thank you!