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I just finished installing and updating TeX Live 2020 on Windows 10. I performed a full installation of TeX Live. Now, compiling this simple document:

% !TEX program = lualatex
\documentclass[a4paper, 10pt, extrafontsizes]{memoir}

\begin{document}
Text
\end{document}

I receive this error message:

This is LuaHBTeX, Version 1.12.0 (TeX Live 2020/W32TeX) 
 restricted system commands enabled.
(c:/Users/marco/Downloads/temp/temp.tex
LaTeX2e <2020-02-02> patch level 5
 L3 programming layer <2020-03-06>
Calling deprecated Lua function strcmp (c:/texlive/2020/texmf-dist/tex/latex/memoir/memoir.cls
Document Class: memoir 2020/10/04 v3.7n configurable book, report, article document class
(c:/texlive/2020/texmf-dist/tex/generic/iftex/iftex.sty) (c:/texlive/2020/texmf-dist/tex/latex/lm/t1lmr.fd) (c:/texlive/2020/texmf-dist/tex/latex/memoir/mem10.clo) (c:/texlive/2020/texmf-dist/tex/latex/lm/lmodern.sty) (c:/texlive/2020/texmf-dist/tex/latex/base/fontenc.sty) (c:/texlive/2020/texmf-dist/tex/latex/tools/array.sty) (c:/texlive/2020/texmf-dist/tex/latex/tools/dcolumn.sty) (c:/texlive/2020/texmf-dist/tex/latex/tools/delarray.sty) (c:/texlive/2020/texmf-dist/tex/latex/tools/tabularx.sty) (c:/texlive/2020/texmf-dist/tex/latex/textcase/textcase.sty))

! LaTeX Error: File `l3backend-pdfmode.def' not found.

How can I solve this problem? Thank you very much for your help!

Marco87
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    something it not up-to-date. check for updates and check if you have some local format hiding the system formats. – Ulrike Fischer Mar 06 '21 at 21:30
  • https://tex.stackexchange.com/questions/499082/file-l3backend-pdfmode-def-not-found-when-loading-expl3 – David Carlisle Mar 06 '21 at 21:34
  • @UlrikeFischer If I run tlmgr update -all, I receive this message: ‘tlmgr.pl: no updates available’. If I run tlmgr update --self, I receive this message: ‘tlmgr.pl: no self-updates for tlmgr available’. And tlmgr search l3backend returns ‘l3backend - LaTeX3 backend drivers’. How can I check about the formats? – Marco87 Mar 07 '21 at 00:51
  • @DavidCarlisle I had seen that answer before. However it doesn’t solve my problem. Could a fresh installation from scratch be the solution? – Marco87 Mar 07 '21 at 00:52
  • kpsewhich --all -engine=pdftex pdflatex.fmt probably reports two formats – David Carlisle Mar 07 '21 at 02:00
  • @DavidCarlisle, that returns: c:/texlive/2020/texmf-var/web2c/pdftex/pdflatex.fmt. What does it mean? – Marco87 Mar 07 '21 at 16:12
  • I just re-installed TeX Live 2020 from scratch (using the ISO file). I only updated TeX Live Manager, but not the packages. Now the document compiles without generating errors. The question now is: if I update the packages, will it continue to work without problems? – Marco87 Mar 07 '21 at 18:46
  • @Marco87 that's the correct output (quite often it returns two pdflatex.fmt in two locations which is bad as often the updates update the standard one but pdflatex keeps finding an old format in a local input directory that was my guess here but not the case so that is good) – David Carlisle Mar 07 '21 at 23:41
  • After updating with tlmgr update --all, the compilation ends without any error. Thank you all! – Marco87 Mar 08 '21 at 14:31

1 Answers1

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I experienced the same issue after a recent tlmgr update --all with texlive 2020. Reinstalling l3backends, l3kernel didn't help.

The changelog for l3backends reads:

[2020-09-01]

Changed

...

  • Split pdfmode driver into pdfTeX- and LuaTeX-specific files ...

so, evidently my recent update picked up this change (it's been a while since I updated).

Then I noticed that when running pdflatex I get:

LaTeX2e <2020-02-02> patch level 5 L3 programming layer <2020-04-06>

So an old L3 version (which preceds the change to l3backend change) is being used, even though L3 had supposedly just been updated to something more recent.

Just as an extra data point, I also noticed that xetex didn't seem to have similar issues.

Following the comment by @David_Carlisle, I ran kpsewhich --all -engine=pdftex pdflatex.fmt and found that I have two locations reported on my system:

/home/craig/.texlive2020/texmf-var/web2c/pdftex/pdflatex.fmt /home/craig/texlive/2020/texmf-var/web2c/pdftex/pdflatex.fmt

I renamed the first one, and the problem went away.

Some related issues suggested that you may need to run mktexlsr, though I didn't need to.

Good luck.

Craig Lavell
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  • I see exactly the same issue. I just install a new fresh TexLive 2020, and update all the packages. Then, I see the same issue when compiler a minimal tex file. If I run the pdflatex, I got the l3backend-pdfmode.def not found issue, if I run pdfxelatex, I got the l3backend-xdvipdfmx.def not found issue. I have tried your method, and kpsewhich --all -engine=pdftex pdflatex.fmt only returns one location. So, not sure how to fix this issue. Thanks. – ollydbg23 Mar 30 '21 at 04:06