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I freshly installed the texlive-full package through synaptic package manager (Ubuntu), and I seem to have some problem with expl3.

Compiling the following document returns a "Missing \begin{document}" error:

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{nomencl}

\begin{document} test \end{document}

Log as follows.

This is pdfTeX, Version 3.14159265-2.6-1.40.21 (TeX Live 2020/Debian) (preloaded format=pdflatex 2021.1.19)  19 JAN 2021 12:50
entering extended mode
 restricted \write18 enabled.
 %&-line parsing enabled.
**test
(./test
LaTeX2e <2020-02-02> patch level 5
L3 programming layer <2020-07-17> (/home/fede/texmf/tex/latex/base/article.cls
Document Class: article 2020/04/10 v1.4m Standard LaTeX document class
(/home/fede/texmf/tex/latex/base/size10.clo
File: size10.clo 2020/04/10 v1.4m Standard LaTeX file (size option)
)
\c@part=\count168
\c@section=\count169
\c@subsection=\count170
\c@subsubsection=\count171
\c@paragraph=\count172
\c@subparagraph=\count173
\c@figure=\count174
\c@table=\count175
\abovecaptionskip=\skip47
\belowcaptionskip=\skip48
\bibindent=\dimen134
)
(/home/fede/texmf/tex/latex/nomencl/nomencl.sty
Package: nomencl 2020/12/29 v5.5 Nomenclature package

(/home/fede/texmf/tex/latex/xkeyval/xkeyval.sty Package: xkeyval 2020/11/20 v2.8 package option processing (HA)

(/home/fede/texmf/tex/generic/xkeyval/xkeyval.tex (/home/fede/texmf/tex/generic/xkeyval/xkvutils.tex \XKV@toks=\toks15 \XKV@tempa@toks=\toks16

(/home/fede/texmf/tex/generic/xkeyval/keyval.tex)) \XKV@depth=\count176 File: xkeyval.tex 2014/12/03 v2.7a key=value parser (HA) )) (/home/fede/texmf/tex/latex/base/ifthen.sty Package: ifthen 2014/09/29 v1.1c Standard LaTeX ifthen package (DPC) ) (/home/fede/texmf/tex/latex/koma-script/tocbasic.sty Package: tocbasic 2020/09/21 v3.32 KOMA-Script package (handling toc-files)

(/home/fede/texmf/tex/latex/koma-script/scrbase.sty Package: scrbase 2020/09/21 v3.32 KOMA-Script package (KOMA-Script-independent basics and keyval usage)

(/home/fede/texmf/tex/latex/koma-script/scrlfile.sty Package: scrlfile 2020/09/21 v3.32 KOMA-Script package (file load hooks)

(/home/fede/texmf/tex/latex/koma-script/scrlfile-patcholdlatex.sty Package: scrlfile-patcholdlatex 2020/09/21 v3.32 KOMA-Script package (patching old LaTeX kernels)

(/home/fede/texmf/tex/latex/koma-script/scrlogo.sty Package: scrlogo 2020/09/21 v3.32 KOMA-Script package (logo) )) (/home/fede/texmf/tex/latex/l3packages/xparse/xparse.sty (/home/fede/texmf/tex/latex/l3kernel/expl3.sty Package: expl3 2021-01-09 L3 programming layer (loader)

! LaTeX Error: Missing \begin{document}.

See the LaTeX manual or LaTeX Companion for explanation. Type H <return> for immediate help. ...

l.77 \ExplLoaderFileDate{expl3.sty}} % ? ! Emergency stop. ...

l.77 \ExplLoaderFileDate{expl3.sty}} % You're in trouble here. Try typing <return> to proceed. If that doesn't work, type X <return> to quit.

Here is how much of TeX's memory you used: 758 strings out of 480906 11450 string characters out of 5910772 253744 words of memory out of 5000000 16402 multiletter control sequences out of 15000+600000 535088 words of font info for 29 fonts, out of 8000000 for 9000 1141 hyphenation exceptions out of 8191 63i,0n,54p,234b,36s stack positions out of 5000i,500n,10000p,200000b,80000s ! ==> Fatal error occurred, no output PDF file produced!

In the example above I used the package nomenclature, but it seems to me that the problem should be somewhere else: I get a bunch of errors if I try to use \NewDocumentCommand or load the package xparse.

This seems to be related with this other question, but that solution (in the comments) did not appear to work for me.

Any idea on what's going on?

  • your format and the expl3 code is out of sync. One typical source of the problem is that you have a local format shadowing the system formats. Run kpsewhich --engine=pdftex --all pdflatex.fmt to check if you have more than one. – Ulrike Fischer Jan 19 '21 at 12:08
  • That is weird, from a newly-installed texlive-full. I'd recommend you install vanilla TeX Live (from here: https://www.tug.org/texlive/acquire-netinstall.html): It's a lot easier and better to manage than the packaged version for Ubuntu – Phelype Oleinik Jan 19 '21 at 12:15
  • @UlrikeFischer - there seems to be only one: the output is /var/lib/texmf/web2c/pdftex/pdflatex.fmt – Federico Vigolo Jan 19 '21 at 12:36
  • @PhelypeOleinik - I had actually tried to install vanilla latex first (following the instructions here: https://tex.stackexchange.com/questions/1092/how-to-install-vanilla-texlive-on-debian-or-ubuntu - 2nd answer), but I seemed to encounter the same issue. I assumed I screwed up something, so I uninstalled it (using the instructions provided on the same page) hoping that the packaged version of tex-live would work out of the box. – Federico Vigolo Jan 19 '21 at 12:40
  • Ah. You have a local texmf tree in /home/fede/texmf, and the version of expl3.sty there dates from 2021-01-09, while the version preloaded on LaTeX is 2020-07-17, thus the error. Try (re)moving l3kernel, l3packages, and l3backend from /home/fede/texmf/tex/latex and run your document again – Phelype Oleinik Jan 19 '21 at 12:48
  • It fixed it, thanks a lot! This makes me wonder, is it good to have anything at all in ~/texmf? Would it be safer to remove that folder altogether?

    (if you post your comment as an answer I will be happy to accept it)

    – Federico Vigolo Jan 19 '21 at 13:56

0 Answers0