[tex-live] Erors rebuilding format after updating TexLive 2016 with tlmgr

[Benoît RIVET]

I have errors rebuilding format after updating TexLive 2016 with the TexLive Utility program on Mac OS X. I have quite a few failure messages, such as :

> (/usr/local/texlive/2016/texmf-dist/tex/generic/hyph-utf8/patterns/tex/hyph-ka.tex
> ! Undefined control sequence.
> \utfthreeuniglyph ... \expandafter {\the \numexpr
> ...
> ...
> ...
> (That makes 100 errors please try again)
> fmtutil [ERROR]: running `pdftex -ini   -jobname=mllatex -progname=mllatex -translate-file=cp227.tcx -mltex mllatex.ini
> fmtutil [ERROR]: return error due to options --strict
> fmtutil [INFO]: Disabled formats: 17
> fmtutil [INFO]: Not selected formats: 51
> fmtutil [INFO]: Failed to build: 1 (pdftex/mllatex)
> fmtutil [INFO]: Total formats: 69
> fmtutil [INFO]: exiting with status 1

This happens for several formats : for example I read in the logs :

> fmtutil [INFO]: Failed to build: 1 (xetex/cont-en)
> fmtutil [INFO]: Failed to build: 1 (pdftex/jadetex)
> fmtutil [INFO]: Failed to build: 1 (pdftex/mllatex)
> fmtutil [INFO]: Failed to build: 1 (pdftex/pdfxmltex)
> fmtutil [INFO]: Failed to build: 1 (pdftex/pdfjadetex)
> fmtutil [INFO]: Failed to build: 1 (pdftex/xmltex)

These errors have proven harmless for me, since I only use lualatex and pdflatex; both of which seem to work without problem despite the above mentioned errors.

I reinstalled MacTex 2016 from scratch, and the same errors happens when trying to update with TexLive Utility. However,  I spotted in the logs the following message :

> fmtutil: fmtutil is using the following fmtutil.cnf files (in precedence order):
> fmtutil:   /usr/local/texlive/texmf-local/web2c/fmtutil.cnf
> fmtutil:   /usr/local/texlive/2016/texmf-dist/web2c/fmtutil.cnf

which make me wonder whether the texmf-local/web2c/files may be conflicting with TexLive 2016 : they seem to have been created 9 years ago (2007) and never changed since (with the exception of updmap.cfg). I assume I can safely remove all the files in texmf-local.web2c (keeping only updmap.cfg) and let tlmgr rebuild the formats when needed.

This bug may of course be specific to Mac OS X (and/or due to the fact that I’ve been using TexLive for more than 9 years), but since it is my understanding that TexLive Utility is only a nice gui built on top of tlmgr on MacOS X, I guess that this may be relevant in other contexts as well. I must add that I do not remember stumbling upon a similar bug since I am using the TexLive Utillity (eg since 2008…).

I wish to thank all the people working hard to provide us this wonderful piece of software which I’m using on a daily basis and which has always proven reliable and to all the people on this list who have always been very helpful,

Benoît RIVET

PS: I could not find the mllatex log (and other .log files) corresponding to the unsuccessful format rebuild; however, I’ve been able to reconstruct these log file from ~/Library/Application Support/Tex Live Utility/Log Messages.plist (which is an xml file logging every step of every action made with Tex Live Utility). This is available on https://www.dropbox.com/s/9wcqxltnkmsiq4s/TexLiveUtility.log?dl=0