Bug#316245: tetex-bin: postinst failure while building etex and pdfetex formats
clone 316245 -1
retitle -1 bogus warning fro fmtutil: "run as root", although fmtutil-sys has been used
severity -1 minor
# the original bug report #316245 is still important
thanks
Dear Laurent,
please take our apologies for not answering to this bug report. I hope
we can still analyse it now.
Laurent Bonnaud <Laurent.Bonnaud@inpg.fr> wrote:
> fmtutil failed. Output has been stored in
> /tmp/tetex.postinst.XXatjQGE
> Please include this file if you report a bug.
> dpkg: error processing tetex-bin (--configure):
>
>
> This tetex installation is in a i386 chroot on an amd64 system.
>
> BTW, the first error messages are strange because they write "possibly
> failed" whereas the failure is certain.
Hm, no, in fact it is not certain. According to the log file the format
was created, but there was a warning during this process. fmtutil
cannot distinguish between fatal errors and TeX warnings if both begin
with the TeX error sign (!), and therefore the failure is only
"possible". The code is in fact:
if test -f $fmtfile; then
grep '^! ' $format.log >/dev/null 2>&1 &&
log_failure "\`$engine -ini $tcxflag $jobswitch $prgswitch $texargs' possibly failed."
That is, if the format file could be created, grep in it for '^!' and
report a failure irrespective of what the error is. See below.
> I have appended the postinst log file at the end of this report.
Thank you, this is a very usable bugreport :-)
> Warning: fmtutil is being run as root; fmtutil-sys should probably be
> used instead. If this is done by a Debian package upon installation,
> upgrade, or removal, please file a bug against that package.
This is a bogus warning specific for Debian, I'm cloning the bug to
treat this separately.
> fmtutil: running `pdfetex -ini -jobname=etex -progname=etex -translate-file=cp227.tcx *etex.ini' ...
> This is pdfeTeX, Version 3.141592-1.21a-2.2 (Web2C 7.5.4) (INITEX)
> (/usr/share/texmf/web2c/cp227.tcx)
> entering extended mode
> (/usr/share/texmf/tex/plain/config/etex.ini
> (/usr/share/texmf/tex/generic/config/pdftexconfig.tex)
> (/usr/share/texmf/tex/plain/etex/etex.src
> (/usr/share/texmf/tex/plain/base/plain.tex Preloading the plain format: codes,
> registers, parameters, fonts, more fonts, macros, math definitions,
> output routines, hyphenation (/usr/share/texmf/tex/generic/hyphen/hyphen.tex
> [skipping from \patterns to end-of-file...]))
> (/usr/share/texmf/tex/plain/etex/etexdefs.lib Skipping module "grouptypes";
> Loading module "interactionmodes"; Skipping module "nodetypes";
> Skipping module "iftypes";)
>
> ! e-TeX warning: unable to open file "language.def";
This is an error, but it is in fact not fatal, and the format can be
used, albeit only with english. You see, although the format could be
created and is (partly) usable, fmtutil reports an error. I think it is
correct if it says "possibly failed", because it is a valid approach to
remove or rename a conffile.
Do you still have the package installed in your chroot, or do you get
the same error if you try again (the version in experimental is now
3.0-5)? If yes, what is the output of
ls -l /usr/share/texmf/tex/plain/config/
ls /etc/texmf/plain/
kpsewhich --progname=etex language.def
and if the last command gives nothing, please try
kpsewhich --debug=126 --progname=etex language.def 2>language.def.debug
and send us the resulting file language.def.debug.
> fmtutil: running `pdfetex -ini -jobname=pdfetex -progname=pdfetex -translate-file=cp227.tcx *pdfetex.ini' ...
[...]
>
> ! e-TeX warning: unable to open file "language.def";
this is the same as abouve.
Regards, Frank
--
Frank Küster
Inst. f. Biochemie der Univ. Zürich
Debian Developer
Reply to: