[OS X TeX] pdflatex fails...'kpathsea: Running mktexfmt pdflatex.fmt'

[Bruno Voisin]

Le 16 août 06 à 02:18, Andreas Duus Pape a écrit :

> Hello.  I get this error on a fresh-out-of-the-box reinstall of the  
> big Mac-Tex download.  Any suggestions?  Thanks.
> [...]
> kpathsea: Running mktexfmt pdflatex.fmt
> fmtutil: running `pdfetex -ini   -jobname=pdflatex - 
> progname=pdflatex -translate-file=cp227.tcx *pdflatex.ini' ...
> [...]
> fmtutil: /Users/apape/Library/texmf/web2c/pdflatex.fmt installed.

This might be again the problem of foo vs. foo-sys: it seems you have  
a mixture of system-wide and per-user setup.

If you used fmtutil instead of fmtutil-sys willingly, in order to  
create format files for your use only, in your home directory at ~/ 
Library/texmf/web2c/, then that's OK and the error is probably  
elsewhere.

However, if you didn't do that willingly, and you used fmtutil  
instead of fmtutil-sys by simply following instructions found  
somewhere on the web or in README files, then that's a likely cause  
of error: in the versions of teTeX and TEXLive from about (I think) a  
year ago, a backwards-incompatible change was introduced, such that  
what was formerly called fmtutil has become fmtutil-sys, with fmtutil  
becoming a different beast. (fmtutil -- and updmap etc. -- create per- 
user setups, in ~/Library/texmf/, and fmtutil-sys and updmap-sys etc.  
create system-wide setups, in /usr/local/teTeX/share/texmf.local/.)

As a result, if you use fmtutil prefixed with sudo, as the commonly  
found instructions used to tell, you may end up now with root-owned  
files in your home directory, implying permission problems for  
standard use. Moreover, because these files live in ~/Library/texmf/,  
they have precedence over /usr/local/teTeX/share/texmf.local/, so  
that any attempt to change them using the correct fmtutil-sys etc.  
will fail (it will write to /usr/local/teTeX/share/texmf.local/ which  
won't be read afterwards).

To solve this, only one solution: remove all of (cited from a former  
post by Gerben Wierda)

> 	~/Library/texmf/tex/generic/config/language.dat
> 	~/Library/texmf/fonts/map/dvipdfm/updmap/dvipdfm.map
> 	~/Library/texmf/fonts/map/dvipdfm/updmap/dvipdfm_dl14.map
> 	~/Library/texmf/fonts/map/dvipdfm/updmap/dvipdfm_ndl14.map
> 	~/Library/texmf/fonts/map/dvips/updmap/builtin35.map
> 	~/Library/texmf/fonts/map/dvips/updmap/download35.map
> 	~/Library/texmf/fonts/map/dvips/updmap/ps2pk.map
> 	~/Library/texmf/fonts/map/dvips/updmap/psfonts.map
> 	~/Library/texmf/fonts/map/dvips/updmap/psfonts_pk.map
> 	~/Library/texmf/fonts/map/dvips/updmap/psfonts_t1.map
> 	~/Library/texmf/fonts/map/pdftex/updmap/pdftex.map
> 	~/Library/texmf/fonts/map/pdftex/updmap/pdftex_dl14.map
> 	~/Library/texmf/fonts/map/pdftex/updmap/pdftex_ndl14.map
> 	~/Library/texmf/web2c/updmap.cfg
> 	~/Library/texmf/web2c/fmtutil.cnf
> 	~/Library/texmf/web2c/*.log
> 	~/Library/texmf/web2c/*.fmt
>
> The last line you have to be careful with in case you created your  
> own unique formats and dumped them there, as they also end in .fmt.  
> You should remove only those that already exist in /usr/local/teTeX/ 
> share/texmf.local/web2c

and then, in i-Installer, open the latest version of the TeX i- 
Package in Expert mode and select "Configure only"; when asked to  
select the list of actions taking place, you'll see a last action  
called IIRC "Personal setup activation" which is precisely here to  
make fmtutil updmap etc. behave as they used to -- provided you  
stick, when asked later to choose whether or not to activate personal  
setups, to the default choice of No.

Hope this helps,

Bruno Voisin------------------------- Info --------------------------
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