Tinytex: `tinytex`/`tlmgr` WIPING the entire installation

[r-cheologist]

This bug report here is difficult, as I have a hard time reproducing it. I have reported this already here: https://stackoverflow.com/q/61226226/2103880 - at least one other person has similar problems.

What I'm seeing (with both the released and remotes::install_github("yihui/tinytex") version) in essence is

1. tinytex installs just fine
2. Processing of *.tex file starts out properly and required packages are being pulled in from CTAN as expected
3. Irreproducibility creeps in here: at some point during the installation of dependencies (reproducible in effect but NOT in number of packages pulled in, nor associated with defined packages), tinytex fails installation and
4. the entire ~/.TinyTeX directory is REMOVED from the file system

If any package install fails (for example due to a given mirror not being up to date with the ungoing TeXLive 2020 release), I would expect the process to fail (possibly with a failover to another mirror), but leaving me with the tinytex installation present to try again.

Here's my attempt at a "reproducible" example:

> tinytex::install()
<... LOTS of output ... NO errors/warnings>
TinyTeX installed to /home/rstudio/.TinyTeX
You may have to restart your system after installing TinyTeX to make sure ~/bin appears in your PATH variable (https://github.com/yihui/tinytex/issues/16).
> tinytex::tinytex_root()
[1] "/home/rstudio/.TinyTeX"
> tinytex::lualatex("<MYFILE>.tex")
tlmgr: package repository http://ftp.gwdg.de/pub/ctan/systems/texlive/tlnet (verified)
[1/1, ??:??/??:??] install: koma-script [13745k]
running mktexlsr ...
done running mktexlsr.
tlmgr: package log updated: /home/rstudio/.TinyTeX/texmf-var/web2c/tlmgr.log
<LOTS of further successful installs>
tlmgr: package repository https://ftp.agdsn.de/pub/mirrors/latex/dante/systems/texlive/tlnet (verified)
[1/2, ??:??/??:??] install: makecmds [2k]
[2/2, 00:00/00:00] install: polyglossia [111k]
running mktexlsr ...
done running mktexlsr.
tlmgr: package log updated: /home/rstudio/.TinyTeX/texmf-var/web2c/tlmgr.log
! LaTeX Error: This NFSS system isn't set up properly.

! sh: 1: lualatex: not found

Error: LaTeX failed to compile inst/scripts/Graumann_CurriculumVitae.tex. See https://yihui.org/tinytex/r/#debugging for debugging tips. See Graumann_CurriculumVitae.log for more info.
In addition: Warning messages:
1: In system2(..., stdout = if (use_file_stdout()) f1 else FALSE, stderr = f2) :
  error in running command
2: In system2("tlmgr", args, ...) : error in running command
> tinytex::tinytex_root()
[1] ""

Here's the session info requested in https://yihui.org/issue/:

> xfun::session_info("tinytex")
R version 3.6.1 (2019-07-05)
Platform: x86_64-pc-linux-gnu (64-bit)
Running under: Debian GNU/Linux 9 (stretch), RStudio 1.2.5019

Locale:
  LC_CTYPE=en_US.UTF-8       LC_NUMERIC=C               LC_TIME=en_US.UTF-8        LC_COLLATE=en_US.UTF-8     LC_MONETARY=en_US.UTF-8   
  LC_MESSAGES=C              LC_PAPER=en_US.UTF-8       LC_NAME=C                  LC_ADDRESS=C               LC_TELEPHONE=C            
  LC_MEASUREMENT=en_US.UTF-8 LC_IDENTIFICATION=C       

Package version:
  graphics_3.6.1  grDevices_3.6.1 stats_3.6.1     tinytex_0.21    tools_3.6.1     utils_3.6.1     xfun_0.11

Installing tinytex_0.21.3 from here does NOT fix the issue.

---

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I understand that my issue may be closed if I don't fulfill my promises.

[raphael-gouvea]

Hi, I'm having the same issue. My previous installation basically disappeared and I don't know why. Trying to reinstall either the tinytex_0.21 or tinytex_0.21.3 does not solve the problem. Installing the prebuilt using `tinytex:::install_prebuilt()" also fails.

Here is my session info
````
xfun::session_info("tinytex")
R version 3.6.3 (2020-02-29)
Platform: x86_64-pc-linux-gnu (64-bit)
Running under: Ubuntu 18.04.4 LTS, RStudio 1.2.5033

Locale:
LC_CTYPE=en_US.UTF-8 LC_NUMERIC=C LC_TIME=en_US.UTF-8 LC_COLLATE=en_US.UTF-8 LC_MONETARY=en_US.UTF-8
LC_MESSAGES=en_US.UTF-8 LC_PAPER=en_US.UTF-8 LC_NAME=C LC_ADDRESS=C LC_TELEPHONE=C
LC_MEASUREMENT=en_US.UTF-8 LC_IDENTIFICATION=C

Package version:
graphics_3.6.3 grDevices_3.6.3 stats_3.6.3 tinytex_0.21.3 tools_3.6.3 utils_3.6.3 xfun_0.13
````

[yihui]

Sounds like a very nasty bug. I'll look into it right now. Sorry about that!

[raphael-gouvea]

Thanks Yihui!
I also tried to install using the terminal following instructions on the website. No success also in this way.

[yihui]

My bad! Should be fixed now. Please test remotes::install_github('yihui/tinytex'). Thanks a lot for the report! I'll make a CRAN release as soon as possible.

[yihui]

I forgot to mention you only need to install the dev version of the R package tinytex. No need to reinstall TinyTeX.

[r-cheologist]

Installation now works indeed and needed CTAN packages are pulled in, but after that I continue to get:

> tinytex::pdflatex("<MYFILE>.tex")
This is pdfTeX, Version 3.14159265-2.6-1.40.21 (TeX Live 2020) (preloaded format=pdflatex)
restricted \write18 enabled.
entering extended mode
I was unable to find any missing LaTeX packages from the error log Graumann_CurriculumVitae.log.
! LaTeX Error: This NFSS system isn't set up properly.

Error: LaTeX failed to compile <MYFILE>.tex. See https://yihui.org/tinytex/r/#debugging for debugging tips. See Graumann_CurriculumVitae.log for more info.

startpaging(googleing) does not appear to help here ... what may be wrong now?

[r-cheologist]

Forget it - this apparently is related to me trying to use the textgreek package. Sorry for the noise.

[yihui]

No worries. Thanks a lot for testing it!

[raphael-gouvea]

It works for me too. Thanks a bunch @yihui!