TeX Live 2024 - bugs and updates

Most of TeX Live is a redistribution of packages and programs from elsewhere, primarily CTAN. So, the place to send bug reports varies:

• If you have problems with a TeX document, e.g., a package is not working, report it to the package maintainer. As a rule, package-specific fixes are not installed directly in TL; instead, new versions of packages need to be uploaded to CTAN.
• If you have questions about using TeX, or need help with TeX, please use the general help resources.
• To report a bug in TeX Live installation or infrastructure, email the public mailing list tex-live@tug.org (public archives).
• For security-related reports, please use the tlsecurity@tug.org mailing list (private archives).

Common requests:

• If you need to use alternate binaries, our recommended approach is the custom binary support in the TL installer. Numerous additional binary sets are available through links on that page. Compiling from source is also an option.
• TL does not provide modules for scripting languages, or interpreters themselves (except for texlua; and, only on Windows, a minimal Perl). Thus it is up to each user to install any needed dependencies of third-party scripts. More info.

Known issues in TeX Live 2024

1. The pdftex, xetex, and euptex binaries as released with TL24 have a bug which makes \aftergroup fail when used with the \output routine, as with the afterpage package. This was fixed in the branch2024 sources in r70755, tag texlive-2024.1, followed by binary updates.
2. The xdvipdfmx binary as released with TL24 had a bug which made insertion of the same image multiple times be instantiated each time in the output, possibly greatly increasing the final output size. This was fixed in the branch2024 sources in r70897, tag texlive-2024.2, followed by binary updates.
3. The symlink universal-darwin/mktexlsr incorrectly pointed to mktexlsr.pl instead of mktexlsr (the shell script). No other platforms were affected. This was fixed in the texlive.infra update of 16mar24. For those who do not want to take updates, you can repoint the link by hand:

   cd .../2024/bin/universal-darwin
   rm mktexlsr
   ln -s ../../texmf-dist/scripts/texlive/mktexlsr mktexlsr
   

Notable changes

As always, there were pervasive updates to packages and programs (highlights of changes). We can't list them all, but here are some of the principal user-visible changes since the initial TL23 release:

Cross-engine extensions

In engines except for original TeX, e-TeX, and LuaTeX:

• Avoid crashes on devious use of \output and \write braces, due to David Fuchs. (change file, test file.)
• Tiny inner-loop optimization, also due to David Fuchs. (change file)

luatex (full LuaTeX news)

• Lua-level checks for writing to files now similar to the TeX-level checks.
• If the Lua value texconfig.trace_extra_newline is set, blank lines are output in the log between macro parameters. In 2020-2023, this happened by default; before that, such blank lines were never output, which is the behavior of the other engines.
• In the past, Windows texlua (not luatex, and not any other platform), internally performed wildcard expansion on the arguments. This no longer happens.

metapost (full MetaPost news)

The MPFI library now included for interval arithmetic; enabled with --numbersystem=interval.

pdftex (full pdfTeX news)

• More reliable text extraction on BigEndian systems.
• More checks against corrupt pfb, fmt, pdf files.
• Avoid writing a corrupt pdf given unusual pdf inclusions.
• Manual converted to LaTeX and thoroughly reviewed, though substantive updates are minimal.

(e)(u)ptex (full ChangeLog)

• New simple encoding conversion utility ptekf.
• eptex no longer built separately; it runs in euptex's legacy-encoding mode.

xetex (full XeTeX news)

• Unicode characters in filenames beyond the BMP are supported.

cweb (full cweb news)

• Support LuaTeX as backend TeX engine.
• Fix buffer overflow on lines with no breakpoint.

dvipdfmx (full dvipdfmx news)

• Calculate time zone offset in the same way as pdfTeX.
• Handle variation selectors to cope with the new Adobe-Japan1-UCS2 CMap.
• Fallback multibyte characters in virtual fonts to OFM fonts for (u)pTeX.
• Support named keyword in pdf:image special.

kpathsea (full Kpathsea news)

• Support an extended check for safe filenames which also allows writing under TEXMF[SYS]VAR, for Lua(La)TeX; new functions and corresponding kpsewhich options.
• Support a new variable TEXMF_OUTPUT_DIRECTORY (alongside the traditional TEXMFOUTPUT), so that subprograms can have access to an --output-directory setting in an engine invocation.

tlmgr (full tlmgr news)

• New action bug to help find bug-reporting information.
• Use our own root certificate bundle on all platforms, to support LWP more widely, notably on macOS.
• Detect a remote repository older than the local installation (i.e., a stale mirror), and don't update, to avoid incorrect package removals.
• Support ConTeXt paper size setting.
• Prune backups of tlpdb files for mirrored repositories (main and tlcontrib).

MacTeX

MacTeX-2024 contains the latest Ghostscript 10.03.0, updates of all four GUI programs, along with (as always) all new TL changes. The binaries still support macOS 10.14 (Mojave) and later. (As usual, earlier Mac versions are supported by the x86_64-darwinlegacy binaries, which are part of TL, but not MacTeX.)

Platforms

• The iso image again includes binaries for all platforms. For the last several years, some binary sets had been pruned, but this year, we are not creating a physical DVD as a user group benefit, so may as well include everything again. Also, even a maximimally-pruned image is too large to fit on a single-layer DVD, so pruning has no benefit for the 2024 volunteer burners. More info.

• Robert Alessi provides binaries for a native TL installation on OpenBSD.

Bug archives for the previous release and earlier years remain online (under systems/texlive; both the initial release each year, and the frozen state at the end of the cycle in tlnet-final).

If you discover other changes that should be noted, please send them in.