[tlbuild] Broken tests for mendexk on arm

[Johannes Hielscher]

(also bringing this back to list)

Am Mon, 22 Mar 2021 23:27:23 +0900
schrieb TANAKA Takuji <ttk at t-lab.opal.ne.jp>:
> If the test [upmendex/tests/upmendex.test] detect an error in ARM, it
> means the issue was exist also at previous TeX Live releases. If it
> is difficult to fix, I think it is OK to release as-is.

This is a, say, “pragmatic stopgap”. I worry that it will most probably
be very difficult to locate the root cause, let alone in time for
TL2021 (and Debian Bullseye).
And chances are, upmendex users on Linux on ARM are so rare, nobody had
noticed the bug for a long time, and won't bother until some point in
the future, well after TL2021 release. By the way, downstream binaries
of Linux distributions (I tested Debian Buster texlive-binaries [1]) are
affected too.

Even if we postpone bug hunting, we have to find a solution for the
test failure in the TL testsuite. I am uncomfortable with just ignoring
a failing test for each build (and CI services like at contextgarden
too). The test itself (as far as I am able to understand what it does)
is useful, and -r58576 should not just be reverted.

Has anyone an idea how to resolve this?

Best regards,
Johannes

[1]
https://packages.debian.org/buster/arm64/texlive-binaries/download