Luaotfload still broken

[Bruno Voisin]

Some further testing, and a clarification of my earlier message to tex-live.

The following happens on the Mac, when typesetting a file with content

% !TEX TS-program = LuaLaTeX
\documentclass{article}
\begin{document}
Hello
\end{document}

having removed beforehand the directories ~/Library/texlive/{2023,2024}, equivalent to ~/{.texlive2023,.texlive2024} on Unix.

Using TeX Live 2023, with luaotfload at version 3.28: everything OK, the file is typeset successfully and the directory tree ~/Library/texlive/2023/texmf-var/luatex-cache and the font cache inside are created in the process.

Using TeX Live 2024, same luaotfload version 3.28: things don't work, any attempt to typeset the file gives

This is LuaHBTeX, Version 1.18.0 (TeX Live 2024) 
 restricted system commands enabled.
(./luaotfload-test.tex
LaTeX2e <2023-11-01> patch level 1
L3 programming layer <2024-02-20>

luaotfload | load : FATAL ERROR
luaotfload | load :   × Failed to load "fontloader" module "basics-gen".
luaotfload | load :   × Error message:
luaotfload | load :     × "...024/texmf-dist/tex/luatex/luaotfload/luaotfload-init.lua:301: system : no writeable cache path, quiting".

stack traceback:
	...ive/2024/texmf-dist/tex/luatex/luaotfload/luaotfload.lua:200: in local 'load_fontloader_module'
	...024/texmf-dist/tex/luatex/luaotfload/luaotfload-init.lua:303: in upvalue 'init_main'
	...024/texmf-dist/tex/luatex/luaotfload/luaotfload-init.lua:590: in function 'luaotfload-init.lua'
	...ive/2024/texmf-dist/tex/luatex/luaotfload/luaotfload.lua:322: in field 'main'
	[\directlua]:1: in main chunk
[...]

and no ~/Library/texlive/2024 is created.

Running "luaotfload-tool --update" in Terminal (with zsh the default shell on the Mac) creates ~/Library/texlive/2024/texmf-var/luatex-cache and the font cache inside it, without any problem; afterwards the file typesets OK. But the same does not happen when ~/Library/texlive/2024 does not exist and LuaTeX launches luaotfload-tool during its run.

Using "luaotfload-tool --cache=show" as a diagnostic tool is misleading, because this creates an (empty) hierarchy /Library/texlive/2024/texmf-var/luatex-cache/generic/names, and the next time the file is typeset LuaTeX has no problem generating the cache inside this hierarchy.

I tried replacing version 3.28 of luaotfload by version 3.26 in TeX Live 2024: the problem remains the same. It looks like it's been there all along the pretest, and I had missed it from the beginning. Sorry for that! Only switching back to the version of LuaTeX in TeX Live 2023 solves the problem, as others have said.

Bruno Voisin