Thanks, that was the problem. I was at mpost 0.970 and with 0.993 the problem vanished. Another problem appeared, which is that pdftk segfaults when uncompressing the new pdf file, but I'll track that down and report it to the pdftk authors. mpost now says it is 0.993. But mpost -v says 0.992. There are a few spots in the source code with 0.992 strings. To find them: find -type f | xargs grep -I '\<0\.99[23]\>' Not sure which are spurious and which need changing. Also, I updated the update-tetex.make. Here's a diff and also the new version is attached. Before running it, I removed the /usr/share/texmf/web2c/mp.pool that the older version of the makefile had installed on the last mpost upgrade; otherwise it would shadow the proper tetex location in /usr/share/texmf-tetex/web2c/. After running it, I did a 'texexec --make --all' (as me) to make sure that my per-user ConTeXt installation knew all about the new metapost. Someday I'll make the latest and greatest ConTeXt a systemwide install. -Sanjoy diff -r d66d0f7eae60 update-tetex.make --- a/update-tetex.make Sun Dec 31 10:37:47 2006 -0700 +++ b/update-tetex.make Sun Dec 31 10:50:22 2006 -0700 @@ -1,18 +1,23 @@ -# For installing mp 0.901 over the tetex-3.0 files (mp 0.641) +# For installing latest mp over the tetex-3.0 equivalents (mp 0.641) .PHONY: install install-exec install-pool install-mplib INSTALL := rsync -ptv -edir1 := metapost-0.901/build/texk/web2c +# directories where the generated executables are put +edir1 := build/texk/web2c edir2 := $(edir1)/mpware +execs := $(edir1)/mpost $(edir1)/dvitomp +execs += $(edir2)/dmp $(edir2)/mpto $(edir2)/newer $(edir2)/makempx + +pool := $(edir1)/mp.pool install: install-exec install-pool install-mplib - fmtutil-sys --refresh + fmtutil-sys --all -install-exec: $(edir1)/mpost $(edir1)/dvitomp $(edir2)/dmp $(edir2)/mpto $(edir2)/newer $(edir2)/makempx +install-exec: $(execs) $(INSTALL) $^ /usr/bin/ -install-pool: $(edir1)/mp.pool - $(INSTALL) $^ /usr/share/texmf/web2c/ -install-mplib: - $(INSTALL) -r metapost-0.901/texmf/metapost /usr/share/texmf-tetex/ +install-pool: $(pool) + $(INSTALL) $^ /usr/share/texmf-tetex/web2c/ +install-mplib: + $(INSTALL) -r texmf/metapost /usr/share/texmf-tetex/ -Sanjoy `A nation of slaves is always prepared to applaud the clemency of their master who, in the abuse of absolute power, does not proceed to the last extremes of injustice and oppression.' (Gibbon) # For installing latest mp over the tetex-3.0 equivalents (mp 0.641) .PHONY: install install-exec install-pool install-mplib INSTALL := rsync -ptv # directories where the generated executables are put edir1 := build/texk/web2c edir2 := $(edir1)/mpware execs := $(edir1)/mpost $(edir1)/dvitomp execs += $(edir2)/dmp $(edir2)/mpto $(edir2)/newer $(edir2)/makempx pool := $(edir1)/mp.pool install: install-exec install-pool install-mplib fmtutil-sys --all install-exec: $(execs) $(INSTALL) $^ /usr/bin/ install-pool: $(pool) $(INSTALL) $^ /usr/share/texmf-tetex/web2c/ install-mplib: $(INSTALL) -r texmf/metapost /usr/share/texmf-tetex/