Problems with LuaTeX 1.08 even on a very simple document

Question

I just installed luatex 1.08 released yesterday (the installation is a manual process and replaces the original luatex v1.07 that ships with Texlive 2018) on my on GNU/Linux x86_64 machine and re-generated all formats using fmtutil-sys.

However, this new binary is not able to compile even a simple document such as:

\documentclass{article}

\begin{document}

hello world!

\end{document}

The contents of the log file is shown below:

This is LuaTeX, Version 1.08.0 (TeX Live 2019/dev)  (format=lualatex 2018.9.1)  1 SEP 2018 13:29
 restricted system commands enabled.
**main.tex
(./main.tex
LaTeX2e <2018-04-01> patch level 5
Lua module: luaotfload-main 2017/01/29 2.80001 OpenType layout system.
Lua module: lualibs 2017-02-01 2.5 ConTeXt Lua standard libraries.
Lua module: lualibs-extended 2017-02-01 2.5 ConTeXt Lua libraries -- extended co
llection.(using write cache: /home/kg314/.texlive2018/texmf-var/luatex-cache/gen
eric)(using read cache: /usr/local/texlive/2018/texmf-var/luatex-cache/generic /
home/kg314/.texlive2018/texmf-var/luatex-cache/generic)
luaotfload | conf : Root cache directory is /home/kg314/.texlive2018/texmf-var/l
uatex-cache/generic/names.
luaotfload | init : Loading fontloader “fontloader-2017-02-11.lua” from kpse
-resolved path “/usr/local/texlive/2018/texmf-dist/tex/luatex/luaotfload/fontl
oader-2017-02-11.lua”....xmf-dist/tex/luatex/luaotfload/fontloader-2017-02-11.
lua:217: table index is nil
stack traceback:
    ...xmf-dist/tex/luatex/luaotfload/fontloader-2017-02-11.lua:217: in main chunk
    [C]: in function 'require'
    ...018/texmf-dist/tex/luatex/luaotfload/luaotfload-init.lua:579: in upvalue 'in
it_main'
    ...018/texmf-dist/tex/luatex/luaotfload/luaotfload-init.lua:768: in function 'l
uaotfload-init.lua.main'
    ...018/texmf-dist/tex/luatex/luaotfload/luaotfload-main.lua:274: in field 'main
'
    [\directlua]:1: in main chunk.
<everyjob> ...ring \\def\string \\encodingdefault{OT1}')end }
                                                  \let \f@encoding \encoding...
l.1 
  %! TEX program = lualatex
? x


Here is how much of LuaTeX's memory you used:
 7 strings out of 494329
 100000,89155 words of node,token memory allocated 241 words of node memory still in use:
   1 dir, 34 glue_spec nodes
   avail lists: 2:12,3:1,4:1
 4328 multiletter control sequences out of 65536+600000
 14 fonts using 591799 bytes
 5i,0n,1p,37b,15s stack positions out of 5000i,500n,10000p,200000b,100000s

warning  (pdf backend): no pages of output.

PDF statistics: 0 PDF objects out of 1000 (max. 8388607)
 0 named destinations out of 1000 (max. 131072)
 1 words of extra memory for PDF output out of 10000 (max. 100000000)

What is going wrong here?

Answer 1

The fontloader provided by the luaotfload package (loaded by default in LuaLaTeX) is not compatible with current LuaTeX versions. A newer fontloader fixing this problem can be found at this GitHub repo in the dev-2.9 branch.

Just download this project and add the texmf directory to your TEXMFHOME, then LuaLaTeX works again.

A step by step guide for Linux:

1. Open a terminal window and go to a directory where you want to save luaotfload. I will assume you choose your home directory /home/kg314, otherwise you have to change the path in Step 4.
2. Run git clone -b dev-2.9 --depth=1 https://github.com/u-fischer/luaotfload
3. Open your texmf.cnf file with your favorite editor, you can find it most likely in /usr/local/texlive/2018/texmf.cnf. You might need root rights (sudo) do edit this file.
4. Add a line TEXMFHOME = /home/kg314/luaotfload/texmf/:
5. Save the file and close everything.