[tex-live] Observations regarding "perl.exe stopped working"

Norbert Preining preining at logic.at
Thu Aug 30 00:51:46 CEST 2012


Hi Lars,

first of all, thanks for all your tests and investigations.

On Mi, 29 Aug 2012, Lars Madsen wrote:
> use Data::Dumper;
>
> to either trans.pl or install-menu-wizard.pl helps

Which is still a strange thing. But I read somewhere about interaction
between utf8 and Dumper ...

> use 5.006_001;
> require Exporter;
> require overload;
>
> which did not do any difference.

Did you try uncommenting the utf8 thingy?

> i.e. line 139:
>
>   $mw = Tk::MainWindow->new(-width => $MWIDTH, -height => $MHEIGHT);

Which is completely proper call ... no idea why it shouldn't work.

>  if ($::opt_select_repository) {
>   } else {
>     do_remote_init();
>     setup_perltk_local_vars();
>     calc_depends();
>   }
>
> Interestingly, if we outcomment the three lines in the 'else' part, then  
> install-tl-advanced.bat also fails with the "perl.exe stopped working"
>
> So the question is: Is there anything set up by these three lines, that  
> it would not hurt to be added to install-menu-wizard.pl such that it  
> might run without problems??

First of all, the same things are done by the wizard in a slightly
different way.
Secondly, do_remote_init and calc_depends has *no* influence on perl/tk
as it is also used in the textmode installer.
Thirdly, setup_perltk_local_vars only can run in ther perltk/advanced
installer, because it sets up some vars necessary for that installer,
but they are not used with other installers.

Lastly, I don't believe that it will change ... I believe that it is
some timing/threaded issue.:
- main window is created, probably in a subthread
- main thread continues (until the MainLop is called)
- at some point the sub thread of the main window dies and tears down
  the main one, too.

SO my wild guess is that if you change something, the error will appear 
somewhere else.

AND ... AND ... the above is *anyway* only executed if you start
the installer with 
	-select-repository
so if you start the advanced without the above option, the mentioned
lines will anyway not be executed. Which points once more at timing
issues independent of the actual code line.

> BTW: The IT guy might be able to provide a VM ware image of a Win 7 that  
> fails if anyone want to play with it for debugging. Drop me an email if  
> interested.

No VMware here, no disk space (old laptop crashed ...) so probably
*I* cannot help.

Best wishes

Norbert
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Norbert Preining            preining@{jaist.ac.jp, logic.at, debian.org}
JAIST, Japan                                 TeX Live & Debian Developer
DSA: 0x09C5B094   fp: 14DF 2E6C 0307 BE6D AD76  A9C0 D2BF 4AA3 09C5 B094
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