2.4.0~RC1 hangs on macOS

[list_email at icloud.com]

Main notes listed inline below.
Jerry

> On Jan 20, 2024, at 11:14 PM, Richard Kimberly Heck <rikiheck at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> On 1/20/24 18:08, list_email at icloud.com wrote:
>> Thanks, el.
>> 
>> I did as you suggested but there was no improvement and little change to the problem. As the rapidly cycling status messages continue in the Welcome file, I am able to start a new file and make a PDF of it. But I can’t close either the new (unsaved) file or the Welcome file because it says it can’t quit because of a background process. Normal quitting method has the same result. Clicking on the spinning circle or red dot has no effect. I tried this multiple times, each time deleting the Support file as you suggested.
>> 
>> Next, I deleted the app as well as these:
>> 
>> org.lyx.LyX-2.4.plist
>> org.lyx.lyx.plist
>> org.lyx.lyx.savedState (a folder)
>> 
>> and re-downloaded and re-launched the app. Now the behavior is worse, getting only the app main menu with Apple logo and “LyX” item, and then nothing but pinwheeling. It doesn’t even open the Welcome file or finish drawing the main menu. I put the three deleted items back but it still hangs on launch. Definitely going in the wrong direction here.
>> 
>> While LyX is hanging as above, Activity Monitor indicates that LyX has launched one instance of Python and repeatedly launches and stops a second instance. My current Python is 3.9 but versions up to 3.12 are installed by macports.
>> 
>> LyX 2.3.7 still works. I notice that I got this version through MacPorts.
>> 
>> I just now updated all my macports stuff which includes Python and texlive. 2.4 still hangs on launch.
> 
> I'm going to guess a few things here.
> 
> I guess the first problem is the hanging on launch. LyX can seem to hang when it's reconfiguring. Deleting the user directory will have forced this. One symptom of this would be seeing various LaTeX-related processes being called over and over again.

I have (now) had LyX hanging on launch for about two hours with the behavior described earlier. I see two Pythons which re-launch every few seconds. I also see pdftex starting and quitting every few seconds. For the pdftex process, Activity Monitor lists a Python as the parent process and the Process Group as LyX.
> 
> If you can get LyX to launch, then we need to find out what this process is that's stopping LyX from closing. Do you have images in the documents you're opening? Lots of math? If the latter, are you using math preview? Or is this just a basic document?

As above, LyX won’t finish launching. I believe it is trying to open only the Welcome file. There is a slight possibility that it is also trying to open a test document that I tried earlier (and described earlier in this thread) but which was open when I force-quit LyX but had not been saved to disk. This test was only a default new file with only a few words of text, which at the time did create a PDF.
> 
> Another possibility is that the PDF creation process is not exiting properly. I'm not sure how to debug that. Again, a symptom would be some LaTeX process still running.
> 
> One thing that might help (with both problems) is if you could start LyX from a terminal and post the output. This should let us see what processes LyX is launching, and where things are getting stuck.

OK. See the attached text file. This is a portion of the output after maybe five seconds. This portion, beginning with

LyX: reconfiguring user directory

repeats about once a second or two. I suppose this is the same frequency as the Python and pdftex repeating things mentioned above.

The only thing that I see odd in this output is that it does not see my Firefox or BibDesk apps.

Jerry

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> Riki
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