Dear Maintainer,

All tex packages were working fine for me until a couple of days ago,
when I did an apt update. I realised that texlive-base could not
configure itself. Unfortunately, no logs on that.

I did however purge and remove any stray files/directories belonging to
anything tex on my machine. I then proceeded to apt install texlive-base
to see if I can rectify the issue with a reinstall. I get the following
output:

[TRUNCATED]
Setting up texlive-binaries (2020.20200327.54578-7) ...
update-alternatives: using /usr/bin/xdvi-xaw to provide /usr/bin/xdvi.bin (xdvi.bin) in auto mode
update-alternatives: using /usr/bin/bibtex.original to provide /usr/bin/bibtex (bibtex) in auto mode
Setting up lmodern (2.004.5-6.1) ...
Setting up texlive-base (2020.20210202-3) ...
mktexlsr: Updating /var/lib/texmf/ls-R-TEXLIVEDIST...
mktexlsr: Updating /var/lib/texmf/ls-R-TEXMFMAIN...
mktexlsr: Updating /var/lib/texmf/ls-R...
mktexlsr: Done.
Can't use string ("2") as an ARRAY ref while "strict refs" in use at /usr/bin/tl-paper line 112.
Can't use string ("2") as an ARRAY ref while "strict refs" in use at /usr/bin/tl-paper line 112.
Can't use string ("2") as an ARRAY ref while "strict refs" in use at /usr/bin/tl-paper line 112.
Can't use string ("2") as an ARRAY ref while "strict refs" in use at /usr/bin/tl-paper line 112.
Can't use string ("2") as an ARRAY ref while "strict refs" in use at /usr/bin/tl-paper line 112.
dpkg: error processing package texlive-base (--configure):
 installed texlive-base package post-installation script subprocess returned error exit status 1
Processing triggers for desktop-file-utils (0.26-1) ...
Processing triggers for gnome-menus (3.36.0-1) ...
Processing triggers for libc-bin (2.31-10) ...
Processing triggers for man-db (2.9.4-2) ...
Processing triggers for install-info (6.7.0.dfsg.2-6) ...
Processing triggers for mailcap (3.69) ...
Processing triggers for fontconfig (2.13.1-4.2) ...
Processing triggers for tex-common (6.16) ...
texlive-base is not ready, delaying updmap-sys call
update-language: texlive-base not installed and configured, doing nothing!
texlive-base is not ready, skipping fmtutil --all call
Errors were encountered while processing:
 texlive-base
E: Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (1)

I am not quite sure what is going on here. I also attempted to remove
this package and install the texlive-full metapackage, however that
fails due to the cascading issue relating to texlive-base not being
configured & failing.

Any help and suggestions is much appreciated. I am not sure if this is
related to the package or not - it seems to be with the postinst script.
I am currently running on a system where sources.list is set to
bullseye.

Please feel free to write back if you require any further information,
or if there is something trivial and non-package related, to which I
understand this bug report being closed.



##################################
minimal input file


##################################
other files

######################################
 List of ls-R files

lrwxrwxrwx 31 root 17 Feb 20:30 /usr/share/texlive/texmf-dist/ls-R -> /var/lib/texmf/ls-R-TEXLIVEDIST
######################################
 Config files
.rw-r--r-- 475 root 28 Mar 14:47 /etc/texmf/web2c/texmf.cnf
Warning: fmtutil.cnf cannot be found with kpsewhich!
Warning: updmap.cfg cannot be found with kpsewhich!
Warning: language.dat cannot be found with kpsewhich!
######################################
 Files in /etc/texmf/web2c/
.rw-r--r-- 283 root 12 Feb 22:13 mktex.cnf
.rw-r--r-- 475 root 28 Mar 14:47 texmf.cnf
######################################
 md5sums of texmf.d
ca40c66f144b4bafc3e59a2dd32ecb9c  /etc/texmf/texmf.d/00debian.cnf

Am 28.03.2021 um 15:58 teilte Shayan Doust mit:

Hi,
What is the content of /etc/papersize? Does running "dpkg-reconfigure
libpaper1" and then try again solve your issue?

Hilmar

Hello Hilmar,

The content of /etc/papersize is a4.

Running "dpkg-reconfigure libpaper1" again, and then trying again for texlive-base, spits out the
same issue I've reported.

Kind regards

Interesting, I don't see that in my case ...

$ pkg-reconfigure libpaper1
Replacing config file /etc/papersize with new version
tl-paper: setting paper size for context to letter: /var/lib/texmf/tex/context/user/cont-sys-paper.tex
tl-paper: setting paper size for dvipdfmx to letter: /var/lib/texmf/dvipdfmx/dvipdfmx-paper.cfg
tl-paper: setting paper size for dvips to letter: /var/lib/texmf/dvips/config/config-paper.ps
tl-paper: setting paper size for pdftex to letter: /var/lib/texmf/tex/generic/tex-ini-files/pdftexconfig.tex
tl-paper: setting paper size for xdvi to letter: /var/lib/texmf/xdvi/XDvi-paper
Running mktexlsr. This may take some time... done.
Building format(s) --refresh.
        This may take some time...
...
$

Can you please do
	for i in xdvi|pdftex|dvips|dvipdfmx|context ; do
		echo "=== $i ==="
		tl-paper get $i
	done
and send the output? And then we continue debugging. It fails in
	tl-paper get $prg
calls and thus it seems something in your configurations files for one
of these programs (or all) seem to be broken.

Best

Norbert

Hello Norbert,

Thanks for your prompt reply.

In fact, running dpkg-reconfigure libpaper1, I get the "system defaults paper size" selection menu, to which I select a4.
I do not get the extra tl-paper output after this. Perhaps this is a side-effect to my unconfigured texlive-base installation.

Running the script you gave me, I get:

=== xdvi ===
Can't use string ("2") as an ARRAY ref while "strict refs" in use at /usr/bin/tl-paper line 112.
=== pdftex ===
Can't use string ("2") as an ARRAY ref while "strict refs" in use at /usr/bin/tl-paper line 112.
=== dvips ===
Can't use string ("2") as an ARRAY ref while "strict refs" in use at /usr/bin/tl-paper line 112.
=== dvipdfmx ===
Can't use string ("2") as an ARRAY ref while "strict refs" in use at /usr/bin/tl-paper line 112.
=== context ===
Can't use string ("2") as an ARRAY ref while "strict refs" in use at /usr/bin/tl-paper line 112.

There is currently no urgency with getting this figured out quickly - texlive-base and all the needed components
work perfectly fine in my chroot environment. It's just very odd, and I'm not sure what is broken on my system.

Kind regards.