[OS X TeX] High Sierra Bug

Mon Nov 27 09:29:04 CET 2017

Hi Dick,

Let me try to answer your questions. The first thing, though, is to say that I just caved and upgraded (one computer) to High Sierra. The main consequence is that now it takes a "very long” time — more than 0.5 seconds, maybe a full second — for the image to focus when I go (in preview) from one page to another for *slides* (beamer) output. For articles it’s much better — unless I skip directly to the last or second to last page, for some reason. (When I compile and the viewer is refreshed, it’s also the last two pages that take long to refocus — at least for the two files I tried.) For slides it’s really bad, including in full-page mode. This is not a tex issue; it is a Preview and Skim (I have the latest version, 1.4.30, btw), but not Acrobat, issue.

a) I typeset using Cmd-T (TexShop), set to the Latex and pdftex (thus, I think, I run pdflatex).

b) I haven’t updated my texlive distribution since 2015. Could that be a problem? My Texshop is up to date (3.92). To be honest, I don’t know whether this answers the question about the binaries.

c) PdfLaTeX.

d) A variety, I can give more details — they depend on the device — if these remain interesting.

I do have a few style files in ~/Library/texmf — no more than 20, have had them for many years, since long before the problems started. In /usr/local/texlive/texmf-local there is only very small one file, named Is-R, I didn’t place it there myself. 

Perhaps, as you say, the computer wastes time looking for useless stuff before it starts work. Would it make sense for me to try to eliminate all usepackage commands that are not actually useful? I can’t think of anything else. Also, since I started typing this message (and doing more experimenting), the compiling seems to have sped up (;-). Seriously.. Maybe High Sierra helps (with a delay??), or my system is under less stress (though whatever I can tell from Activity Monitor appears the same). Actually, one thing I did do since starting the email was to delete some files from ~/Library/texmf, put there by a syncing program I use to sync the folder to a dropbox folder; the change in speed was not immediate, I thought, but it is better now. I synced again, as an experiment, only one file came back, the speed hasn’t suffered.

If you have no follow-up given where I am now, I’ll just let you know if the speed suffers again. In the meantime, I’ll probably upgrade the OS on my more powerful computer (iMac), too, see about the display issues.

Best,
Nicolae 

On Nov 26, 2017, at 07:01, Richard M. Koch <koch at uoregon.edu> wrote:

Nicolae,

Read those notes VERY carefully. Apple FIXED many PDFKit bugs in High Sierra. The problem
is that they introduced new bugs. I suspect that some of your complaints are out of date.

I'm also interested in your report of the speed of TeX. Here are some questions:

	a) How do you typeset? From a shell, from a front end, if so which

	b) What binaries are you using? From 2017, or an earlier year, If from 2017,
are you using the binaries i made on Yosemite, or are you using the legacy binaries
made by someone else?

	c) What typesetting engine do you use? PdfTeX, PdfLaTeX, ConTeXt, LuaTeX?

	d) What equipment, and what version of OS X

Eventually I may ask for some actual timings. I don't know other complaints of slow
typesetting speed, so we need to investigate this.

Do you just use standard style and class files in TeX, or did you add files in ~/Library/texmf?
Do you have files in /usr/local/texlive/texmf-local? TeX Wizzards have explained to me that speed
problems are often the result of long searches, rather than typesetting speed itself, caused sometimes
by misconfiguration of environment variables.

Dick Koch

> On Nov 25, 2017, at 10:40 PM, Nicolae Garleanu <garleanu at berkeley.edu> wrote:
> 
> I’d like to add a clarification, having gone through Dick’s description of changes in the process of upgrading to 3.92. My issues with the refreshing of the preview is NOT a High Sierra issue; in fact, I haven’t even installed High Sierra yet. I infer that it is only worse in High Sierra.
> Nicolae 
> 
> 
> 
> On Nov 25, 2017, at 11:15, Herbert Schulz <herbs at wideopenwest.com> wrote:
> 
>> On Nov 25, 2017, at 12:53 PM, Nicolae Garleanu <garleanu at berkeley.edu> wrote:
>> 
>> I can’t say which upgrade it was that did it for me (probably after yosemite; now I am on Sierra), but the whole tex on mac experience for me became distinctly less pleasant at some point. The compilation times went up considerably (on the same computer, say my old, mid-2013 MBA; my more powerful computers — iMacs — are faster, but I’m inclined to say that they are still surprisingly, if not shockingly, slow). Second, while it used to be the case that the preview file would update with no visible sign (other than the changed content, of course), now the window becomes white first (may be very short), then reloads; Herb referred to this as “flashing". This is particularly noticeable when working on slides, especially when using dynamic features. Both Preview and Skim provide a “hiccupy” transition from page to page, including in full page mode; only Acrobat works as it should, but of course it does not play nice with the editor.
>> Nicolae 
> 
> Howdy,
> 
> I didn't have any problems with Sierra. I see a momentary gray flash when pages are refreshed and the pdf display is a bit fuzzy on my older 2011 21" iMac.
> 
> Good Luck,
> 
> Herb Schulz
> (herbs at wideopenwest dot com)
> 
> 
> 
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