The reason is the same as for
https://github.com/varnishcache/varnish-cache/issues/2708 :

VRT_priv_task may now return NULL for out-of-workspace errors, see
https://github.com/varnishcache/varnish-cache/commit/de2b431086a13b243dc8b3e71cd8697db1df2c7f