[tex-live] texlive 2008 update --all loses update.cfg, help?

[George N. White III]

On Sat, May 16, 2009 at 11:20 AM, John Owens <john_owens at yahoo.com> wrote:

> Hey, I haven't run tlmgr --update all (OS X) for a good while, and did
> so today. I've done this many times in the past with no problems. It
> installed/updated 46 things including many bin packages. I put the
> transcript below - it caused a large number of cascading errors that
> start with updmap.cfg not being found.

I've been doing "tlmgr update --list" and then "tlmgr update --all"
for 4 Mac OS X systems regularly.

Since the freeze there haven't been any updates, so I haven't run the 2nd
command (and it may be some weeks before I have a chance to try that).

> Now, updmap.cfg is right where I left it:
>
> $ ls -l .texlive2008/texmf-config/web2c/updmap.cfg
> -rw-r--r--  1 jowens  staff  3427 Apr  9 13:59 .texlive2008/texmf-config/web2c/updmap.cfg
>
> but the tex install seems to have lost all memory:

Either some files are missing, the wrong versions of the tools are being
run, the tools are looking in the wrong place.

Have you checked your filesystem recently?

Are multiple tex systems installed (e.g, TL2007, tetex, etc.)?  There is
nothing wrong with that if you know about it and have adjusted the search
path accordingly, but it can be a source of surprising behaviours.

> $ kpsewhich updmap.cfg
> $ texhash --verbose
> texhash: Done.

What is "which kpsewhich"?   Kpsewhich has debugging flags
that should help track down the problem.

> So I'm going to have to re-teach it where things are. (Short advice in
> doing so appreciated.) The reason I'm mailing this list is: What
> happened in this update to screw things up this badly? Again, I've
> done this many times in the past with no issues. And once I do reteach
> it, what do I need to do to fix the things that went wrong at the end
> of the updmap?

The vast majority of TeX problems I encounter are caused by mixing
bits from different packages.  It is all too easy for bits from some old
tex system to get pulled in via package dependencies are with some
old document.   Before attempting manual fixes make sure you are
running the right binaries.

>[..]
> $ sudo tlmgr update --all

It is highly recommened that you change ownership of the texlive trees to some
ordinary user and avoid use of "sudo" for TeX Live maintenance.

> tlmgr: installation location http://ctan.unixbrain.com/systems/texlive/tlnet/2008
> [1/46] auto-install: figbas
> [...]
> [46/46] update: yhmath (12831 -> 12961) ... done
> tlmgr: package log updated at /usr/local/texlive/2008/texmf-var/web2c/tlmgr.log
> running mktexlsr
> mktexlsr: Done.

Scan for ls-R files -- if the wrong mktexlsr was run they may have been
created in the wrong place.

> running updmap-sys --nomkmap --nohash --disable fge.map
> updmap: config file updmap.cfg not found.

Since you seem to have a personal updmap.cfg, maybe you want
to run "updmap" without the "-sys".

> [...]



-- 
George N. White III <aa056 at chebucto.ns.ca>
Head of St. Margarets Bay, Nova Scotia