PDF export fails with pdflatex and LuaTeX

[Paul A. Rubin]

On 2/11/20 3:44 PM, Martin Weise wrote:
> On 11.02.20 20:44, Kornel Benko wrote:
>> Am Tue, 11 Feb 2020 14:33:23 -0500
>> schrieb "Paul A. Rubin" <parubin73 at gmail.com>:
>>
>>>>> If you open a terminal in the temp directory and run pdflatex against
>>>>> the .tex file, does it compile? If not, is there a meaningful error
>>>>> message in the terminal?
>>>>>
>>>>> Paul
>>>>>   
>>>> Yes, it does. There is no error.
>>>>
>>>> Martin
>>>>
>>>>   
>>> Okay, what follows is definitely grasping at straws. From a clean start
>>> of LyX, load the HelloWord.lyx file and try to either view or export a
>>> PDF. Presumably this will fail. Copy the LaTeX .log file in the LyX temp
>>> directory to someplace safe. Leave LyX open (so that the temp directory
>>> remains).
>> I would
>> 	create a new (empty) directory
>> 	copy HelloWord.lyx there
>> 	and use this copied file
>>
>>> Now, in a terminal, run pdflatex on the .tex file in the LyX temp
>>> directory. Presumably this succeeds in generating a PDF file. Copy the
>>> new LaTeX .log file someplace safe. Then compare the two (using either
>>> 'diff' if you are command-line oriented or 'meld' if you like graphical
>>> output) and see if you can find a clue in the differences between the
>>> log files. Alternatively, you can post both log files here.
>>>
>>> Paul
>>>
>> 	Kornel
>>
> Ok, here's something I (just) noticed: pdflatex, when run without
> arguments, produces a .dvi file from HelloWorld.tex. It is only if I
> specify "-output-format=pdf" that it creates a .pdf file.
>
>  From what I understand, this is not what pdflatex should normally do.
>
I'm losing track of what all we've looked at. If you have not already 
done so, can you post the .tex file here? There is a way to put a 
comment (I think) in a .tex file that will tell pdftex or pdflatex to 
generate a DVI rather than a PDF file.