Tell me more ×
TeX - LaTeX Stack Exchange is a question and answer site for users of TeX, LaTeX, ConTeXt, and related typesetting systems. It's 100% free, no registration required.
up vote 6 down vote favorite

I tried today to update my install, and tlmgr does not want to cooperate:

$ tlmgr update --all
Unknown tag: runfiles si at /work/usr/texlive/2010/tlpkg/TeXLive/TLPOBJ.pm line 241, <TMP> line 105460

What can the problem be? How can I fix this?

share|improve this question
try tlmgr update --self --all – Herbert May 6 '11 at 12:39
2  
@Peter: then drop a line to he texlive mailing list – Herbert May 8 '11 at 7:11
2  
@Herbert Isn't this the place to answer this? I don't like mailing lists. Maybe some of the people there will read it here also. – Peter Smit May 9 '11 at 6:27
1  
@Peter: This kind of errors are better in the hands of the developer. Because it is hard to reproduce this issues such questions are under the risk to be closed as "too localized". On the other hand if the question is answerable, it is nice to have both Q&A around because Google results favor stackexchange sites, so people with the same issue will find a solution quickly. – Martin Scharrer♦ May 10 '11 at 18:48
1  
@Peter: You might want accept Tomek's answer instead of mine. It seems to be the (more) correct one. – Martin Scharrer♦ May 10 '11 at 21:54
show 4 more comments

2 Answers

up vote 11 down vote accepted
+50

Please, do not replace texlive.tlpdb from your installation with texlive.tlpdb.be17af42b38bde18ed074dc333c8326e or any such file! This file is a cached copy of the package database from the remote repository, kept to speed up network operations (it is downloaded only if it changes). The long hexadecimal number is a hash of the repository location, from which this file came. Your local texlive.tlpdb is not the same as the one from the repository and should not be replaced by it. Instead, you can regenerate it by calling (the output goes to stdout):

tlmgr recreate-tlpdb > texlive.tlpdb
share|improve this answer
Ah, good to know. I just assumed it was a backup file. It has almost the same as size than the original. – Martin Scharrer♦ May 10 '11 at 21:32
1  
Thanks Tomek! I executed this command, and after that a tlmgr update, and it seems it reinstalled quite some packages. Now I think everything is working! – Peter Smit May 11 '11 at 2:31
up vote 1 down vote

I had a look on this now. The error message seems to be caused by a defect texlive.tlpdb data base file, most likely caused by an interrupted download. The runfiles si should actually be runfiles size=<number>. You need to replace this file with a good one.

It is normally located in the tlpkg directory of your TeXLive installation, which is /usr/local/texlive/2010/tlpkg for me, but seems to be /work/usr/texlive/2010/tlpkg for you. Look into this directory, there should be a backup file named like texlive.tlpdb.be17af42b38bde18ed074dc333c8326e (the last part is a random hexadecimal number and will be most likely different for you). Copy that file over the texlive.tlpdb file and try it again.

If this doesn't work download the DB file manually, e.g. from http://www.tex.ac.uk/ctan/systems/texlive/tlnet/tlpkg/texlive.tlpdb, and replace the existing file. This should fix your problem.

share|improve this answer
I had to download the DB file manually, but after that it seems to work all again! Thanks! – Peter Smit May 10 '11 at 20:01
I checked, it seemed to work, but it didn't. Somehow it actually didn't update any packages. – Peter Smit May 11 '11 at 2:31
@Peter: Ok, sorry for that. I looked like the right thing to do. – Martin Scharrer♦ May 11 '11 at 7:01
1  
Thanks for the help anyway! You were right about the part that the corrupted tlpdb file was the problem! – Peter Smit May 11 '11 at 7:18

Your Answer

 
discard

By posting your answer, you agree to the privacy policy and terms of service.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged or ask your own question.