Upgraded TeXLive; pdflatex throws an error

[Paul Rubin]

On 3/16/24 13:33, Rich Shepard wrote:
> On Sat, 16 Mar 2024, Paul Rubin wrote:
>
>> I trust you are leaving LyX open while you look for the temp 
>> directory. If
>> you go to Tools > Preferences... > Paths, what do you have filled in for
>> "Temporary directory:"?
>
> Paul,
>
> /tmp, and that's where I've found LyX_tempbuf* before.
>
> Thanks,
>
> Rich
Rich,

In order to try to compile the doc, LyX has to write a .tex file 
someplace, and that someplace has to be the "tempbuf" directory. As long 
as you don't close LyX (and barring a rift in the space-time continuum), 
that buffer directory and its contents should stay put.

To see a bit more about what's going on, try running "lyx -dbg files" in 
a terminal. It will tell you where it's parking things and what names 
it's giving them. I tried this with one of your mwe.lyx files and 
encountered something surprising.  The file loaded into LyX without any 
major complaints. (There was a message "Bibinfo cache was invalid", 
which probably does not amount to anything.) When I tried to compile it, 
I got an export error message related to the infamous 0xfffc character. 
The TeX file (mwe.tex) was written to the buffer directory, but there 
was no LaTeX log file because LyX never reached the point of running 
pdflatex (or whatever), since the export was flagged as incorrect. 
Clicking "View Complete Log..." in the error message pane caused LyX to 
calculate a name and location for the log file but not to create one 
(because, again, it didn't compile the file, hence no log). Changing the 
document encoding to "Unicode (utf8)" and compiling produced a log file 
and a bunch of auxiliary files in the buffer directory.

So not finding a log file is probably due to the export error blocking 
compilation. Not find the buffer directory is likely due to interference 
by extraterrestrials.

Paul