Array error when trying to open settings tab for url aliases

Attaching a fix. Please test.

Thanks for the suggestion.. Try the fix, still get white screen with 'unexpected error', and log now says:

TypeError: implode(): Argument #1 ($pieces) must be of type array, string given in implode() (line 256 of /home/eucitize/public_html/modules/contrib/pathauto/src/Form/PathautoSettingsForm.php)

Save the module's configuration form and try again. I noticed that the module configuration is missing in the system.
The fix added in #2 patch will not work.

- Re-wrote patch #2 as MR.
- Updated to catch missing `safe_tokens`

Tested on Drupal 10.1.0 with Pathauto 1.11.0

Tested the feature branch. It does prevent the error from occurring in case the config is initially missing.

Marking as RTBC.

thanks @keshavv and @marcoliver, but I'm afraid this is not the solution to my issue?

I have no files missing, so there's nothing I can save or add.. I've tried to remove the entire pathauto/config folder and to reinstall those files, but it makes no difference at all.

The entire module works fine, just at the 'settings' tab I get this array error.

To give a bit more detail: the pathauto module on this site used to work fine until recently. There are patterns for all content types, and these work fine to this day.

It's just that a little while ago (about a week before I raised this issue) the module stopped replacing spaces with hyphens, so suddenly newly created pages got a alias with everything written together (so /thisisfourwords instead of the desired /this-is-four-words). As the site is live and very active, this is a major problem and not an environment I can just crash at will to find a solution.. On all my other sites, including several with near identical set-ups, the module works fine.

And further suggestions would be extremely welcome!