Hi Felix, Some time ago I encountered the same problem and we had a thread on this list about this: https://www.mail-archive.com/ntg-context@ntg.nl/msg95355.html The problem on my Mac came from the fact that a directory /opt/local/etc/texmf/ existed (installed by MacPorts, without me knowing it…) where ConTeXt tries to find a format, while there is none. I removed that directory and then I could use ConTeXt from MacTex 2020. Best regards: Otared

On 18 Sep 2020, at 09:41, Felix Krause wrote:

Hi all,

with MacTeX 2020 on a newly installed Mac, I have the problem that ConTeXt doesn't work anymore:

$ context file.tex mtx-context | warning: no format found, forcing remake (commandline driven) […] snip lots of lines resolvers | formats | changing to format path '/var/folders/rj/hfjmjx796q102y4v23vh038c0000gp/T/luatex-cache/context/a86c089b384a3076dc514ba966a1fac9/formats/luatex' resolvers | formats | unable to change to format path '/var/folders/rj/hfjmjx796q102y4v23vh038c0000gp/T/luatex-cache/context/a86c089b384a3076dc514ba966a1fac9/formats/luatex' mtx-context | error, no format found with name: cont-en, aborting system | total runtime: 5.315 seconds The ConTeXt docs https://wiki.contextgarden.net/Running_Mark_IV say that I should run mtxrun --generate, which seems to run successfully, and context --make, which finishes with the same „unable to change format path“ error (I believe this is what context automatically does when compiling my file, hinted by the „no format found. forcing remake“ message). I tried explicitly running context --make cont-en which yields the same result. The given path does exist on my hard drive.

I don't even know if the „unable to change format path“ message is actually an error, but I have no other indicator of what goes wrong. The only line that explicitly says „error“ is the one I get when trying to process the file.

Interestingly, I have another Mac where I upgraded from MacTeX 2019 to MacTeX 2020 and everything works there.

I made sure that everything is up-to-date with the TeX Live Utility.

How can I fix this problem?

Regards, Felix

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On 18. Sep 2020, at 11:35, Felix Krause wrote:

Hm. I don't have this directory (not using MacPorts) and my error seems to be quite different (the scripts to be executed seem to be found). I dug through the thread but for all I can see, nothing there describes my problem or a solution for solving it.

Then tell us a bit more about your system. What is the output of which -a context for example? Is /var/folders/ the normal path where mactex would expect a format file? I use a Mac, but I have vanilla texlive installed; I never quite understood where mactex was any better, so I can’t test on my system. Thomas

On 18 Sep 2020, at 11:43, Thomas A. Schmitz wrote:

Then tell us a bit more about your system. What is the output of

which -a context

/Library/TeX/texbin/context which is an alias of /Library/TeX/texbin/context@ -> ../../texmf-dist/scripts/context/stubs/unix/context and texbin is /Library/TeX/texbin@ -> Distributions/Programs/texbin /Library/TeX/Distributions/Programs/texbin@ -> ../.DefaultTeX/Contents/Programs/texbin /Library/TeX/Distributions/.DefaultTeX/Contents@ -> ../TeXLive-2020.texdist/Contents

for example? Is

/var/folders/

the normal path where mactex would expect a format file? I use a Mac, but I have vanilla texlive installed; I never quite understood where mactex was any better, so I can’t test on my system.

The directory name luatex-cache suggests it's used for caching. I interpret the output like „something happens during the generation of the format file and therefore the file never gets generated“. I don't know much about the internals. I don't really have any reason for using MacTeX over texlive; I was once told that this is the thing I want to use on a Mac when I was a student, and have used it ever since. I could switch over and try texlive if nothing else helps, though I think it would be good to pin down the cause of this error and tell the MacTeX folks about it. Regards, Felix

On 18. Sep 2020, at 12:00, Felix Krause wrote:

The directory name luatex-cache suggests it's used for caching.

That doesn’t help a lot.

I interpret the output like „something happens during the generation of the format file and therefore the file never gets generated“. I don't know much about the internals.

What does mtxrun --expand-var TEXMFCACHE return? Thomas

On 18 Sep 2020, at 12:36, Thomas A. Schmitz wrote:

What does

mtxrun --expand-var TEXMFCACHE

return?

selfautoparent:texmf-var;/Users/flyx/Library/texlive/2020/texmf-var Regards, Felix

On Fri, Sep 18, 2020 at 01:48:16PM +0200, Felix Krause wrote:

...

In your case validformatpath is a subdirectory of $TMPDIR, under /var/folders/. However, if your Mac is anything like mine, /var is actually a symbolic link to /private/var, so that dir.current() reports a path starting with /private and the test fails.

Yes, this is the setup here as well.

That was rhetorical :-) /var and /tmp (as well as /etc) have been symbolic links for at least ten years, probably earlier.

...

You can work around that by setting TMPDIR to some other value, that doesn’t start with /var -- and not /tmp either because that’s also a symbolic link :-) It should work with a temporary directory in your home folder. Can you try that?

This works. Thanks a lot (also to everyone else involved)!

Glad to hear that, and you’re welcome, but this should also be fixed in ConTeXt -- Hans, can you do something about that? It should be enough to resolve symbolic links on either sides of the test dir.current() ~= validformatpath Best, Arthur