[Tex/LaTex] Problem with installation: cannot determine release!

errorstexliveupdatingwindows

My Windows 10 system has just started acting like and usual Windows system: every now and then, it suddenly stops by itself.

Unfortunately, it happened while I was updating TeX Live (2017).

Now, if I try to start the TeX Live GUI, I get immediately the error:

Problem with installation: cannot determine release!

If I launch tlmgr update --all in the command prompt, I get a series of invisible characters followed by:

at C:/texlive/2017/tlpkg/TeXLive/TLPOBJ.pm line 103, <TMP> line 1.

I've found this post:
"TeX Live Manager" send an error with the message "Cannot determine release"
but its answer doesn't help me, because I have the file release-texlive.txt in the directory C:\texlive\2017, containing:

TeX Live (http://tug.org/texlive) version 2017

This file is public domain.  It is read by install-tl --version,
tlmgr --version, and texconfig conf, and a final line appended with
the precise version number by tl-update-images during a build.

The following blank line helps avoid confusing output when
used directly from svn, so don't delete it.

Best Answer

^{I'm answering my own question just for the record.}

In cases like mine, I highly recommend to send an email to tex-live@tug.org, see here for more info. (The mailbox is public, you can see the collection of prior postings to that list here. If it is the first time you write, wait a bit because your post is checked before publishing it.)

As for my problem, some files of mine got corrupted (e.g. my texlive.tlpdb in C:/texlive/2017/tlpkg contained only invalid chars, not normal text as usual).

Unfortunately, it didn't fix either running update-tlmgr-latest.exe nor running tlmgr recreate-tlpdb --platform=win32.

Eventually, since it should have been more complex to fix the problem (to find all the corrupted files) than to reinstall TeX Live, I reinstalled, and now it all works perfectly.

Before reinstallation, I run an "optimize and defragment" of my hard drive.

^{Thanks to Norbert (TeX Live team) and David for their help.}

Related Solutions

[Tex/LaTex] Problem With updmap-sys

This seems to be a recently reported problem, and I suspect there will be a more permanent fix distributed, (as confirmed by Norbert's answer) but for the moment, edit the file (you will probably need to use an editor that allows you to authenticate to save, or invoke your editor with sudo.)

/usr/local/texlive/2012/texmf-dist/web2c/updmap.cfg

In it you will find a line

${PKGNAME}.map

As egreg notes in the comments, this is an error in the bguq, so you can change this line to

bguq.map

and save the file. Then run:

sudo updmap-sys

And you should be fine.

[Tex/LaTex] tlmgr cannot setup TLPDB

Sorry to reactivate this old post but there was no correct answer.

The message :

(running on Debian, switching to user mode!) cannot setup TLPDB in /home/USER/texmf at /usr/bin/tlmgr line 5308.

is generated when tlmgr was not initialized. In most cases, launching the following command (as a normal user) solves the problem :

 $ tlmgr init-usertree

This command will create few folders inside your home directory. See the man page for explanation :

Before using tlmgr in user mode, you have to set up the user tree with the init-usertree action. This creates usertree/web2c and usertree/tlpkg/tlpobj, and a minimal usertree/tlpkg/texlive.tlpdb. At that point, you can tell tlmgr to do the (supported) actions by adding the --usermode command line option.

Best Answer

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