Upgrade failure and corrupted installation ?

[Norbert Preining]

Hi Yann,

On Mon, 28 Aug 2023, TeX Live Mailing List wrote:
> $ tlmgr update --self --all
> Unable to download the checksum of the remote TeX Live database,
> but found a local copy, so using that.

That normally indicates one of a few things:
- error in the URL
- mirror server is not working
- mirror server is currently syncing

> tlmgr: package repository
> http://ctan.math.washington.edu/tex-archive/systems/texlive/tlnet (not
> verified: unknown)

I just checked, that is still down/broken it seems.

> [ 2/58, ??:??/??:??] update: amstex [439k] (66186 -> 67930) ...
> TLPDB::_install_data: downloading did not succeed (download_file failed) for http://ctan.math.washington.edu/tex-archive/systems/texlive/tlnet/archive/amstex.tar.xz

As expected, the server seems to be broken. I get timeouts even now.

> I interrupted (^C) tlmgr after 7 failed upgrade attempts.

Not a good idea, since you interrupt writing of the database.

> $ tlmgr option repository
> https://mirrors.ircam.fr/pub/CTAN/systems/texlive/tlnet/

BTW, you can use
	tlmgr --repository ... update --self --all
if you don't want to change the default mirror.

> tlmgr: Fundamental package texlive.infra not present, uh oh, goodbyeShould
> not happen, texlive.infra not found at
> /opt/yann/texlive/current/bin/x86_64-linux/tlmgr line 7708.

Yes, that is the consequences of interrupting tlmgr while the database
was written.

> $ sh /tmp/update-tlmgr-latest.sh --

Good idea.

> ./runme.sh: done.

Looks like it worked.

> $ tlmgr update --self --all
> tlmgr: package repository
> https://mirrors.ircam.fr/pub/CTAN/systems/texlive/tlnet/ (verified)
> tlmgr: saving backups to /opt/yann/texlive/current/tlpkg/backups
> tlmgr: no self-updates for tlmgr available

Ok

> tlmgr: dehyph mentioned, but neither new nor forcibly removed
> tlmgr: perhaps try tlmgr search or tlmgr info.
[...]

The database was broken, lots of information lost.

Best thing to do is
	tlmgr update --all --reinstall-forcibly-removed
that should fix all these problems.

> What confounds me at this point is that only the 7 packages that tlmgr tried
> to upgrade earlier were taken into consideration. Indeed, the texlive.tlpdb
> is very small, only 2.1 MB. I have a file named
> texlive.tlpdb.main.fbec35173e86b9f184aa1ae67b227d82 of size 17.4 MB. I tried
> renaming it to texlive.tlpdb but then tlmgr tells me

No don't do this. These are caches of the **remote** database and you
destroy your settings. No good.

> What can I do now ? Isn't there a journal of what is planned during an
> upgrade, so it can be resumed if it fails or is interrupted ?

What you should do is:
- restore the original (small) tlpdb (you made a backup copy before
  overwriting it, didn't you?)
- run
	tlmgr update --all --reinstall-forcibly-removed

That should do it.

Best

Norbert

--
PREINING Norbert                              https://www.preining.info
Mercari Inc.     +     IFMGA Guide     +     TU Wien     +     TeX Live
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