[scribus] LaTeX Render Frame error on export in 1.5.4 macOS

Thu Dec 27 18:52:10 UTC 2018

On 27Dec 2018, at 12:23, Gregory Pittman <gpittman at iglou.com> wrote:

> On 12/27/18 12:01 PM, John K. Parejko wrote:
>> Yes, I can generate PDFs from LaTeX, using either pdflatex or xelatex. Scribus even seems to be able to do so itself: the Render frame preview appears to be built correctly within Scribus, showing the rendered LaTeX in place.
>> 
>> Is there a way to see the full the command that Scribus is running?
>> 
> Hi again John,
> 
> You should be able to look in File > Preferences > External Tools and see the specific pdflatex command with any modifiers. Mine has 'LaTeX (Command: pdflatex --interaction nonstopmode)’

Yes, I’m aware of that: that’s how I changed it to use xelatex. But that can’t be the full command that scribus is running, since it’s generating the files in a temporary directory (latex normally produces all output in the current working directory).

> The "Object is a placed PDF" is not really an error, it's just a message.

It must be an error, since you have to click “Ignore Errors” to get to the PDF export window.

> When I made a simple render frame, then saved to PDF to the /tmp directory, there were 4 files generated. One was the plain text LaTeX document, with accompanying .aux and .log files, and then a PDF consisting only of the render frame results, and finally the final PDF which incorporates the placed PDF. Interestingly, when I tried this again but saved the final PDF to another directory, I couldn't find the other three.

I just created a trivial document with a render frame with some math in it, and it was able to export to PDF.

> Can you find this find this file /var/folders/1s/x4hsw5kj4pdbnlvfw75zzkv40000gq/T/scribus_temp_render_QUKzdK.pdf?

I just re-ran the export, and I can see and open the PDF file in /var/folders/… that scribus claims it “Failed to load”. I wonder if there’s a timing mismatch, where scribus is checking for the file before it is fully written to disk?

Another piece of data (useful or not) is that I cannot even place a render frame if I open the Scribus application directly; I get an error message that “Your Render Frame configuration seems to be invalid”, but it doesn’t tell me which part is invalid, and the latex configuration is fine. But I can place render frames from the commandline (by running `/Applications/Scribus.app/Contents/MacOS/Scribus`), which makes me think that macOS SIP might be the cause of at least one of these problems.

John

>>> On 27Dec 2018, at 07:52, Gregory Pittman <gpittman at iglou.com> wrote:
>>> 
>>> On 12/27/18 4:06 AM, John K. Parejko wrote:
>>>> Hello,
>>>> 
>>>> I’m having trouble with Render frames on macOS (10.13.6). They preview ok in Scribus (1.5.4), but I cannot generate the PDF, getting an error like the following after clicking “save” on the PDF export window:
>>>> 
>>>> Cannot write the file: 
>>>> /Users/parejkoj/lsst/temp/AAS2019/poster/Parejko-AAS2019-jointcal-poster.pdf
>>>> Failed to load an image : /var/folders/1s/x4hsw5kj4pdbnlvfw75zzkv40000gq/T/scribus_temp_render_QUKzdK.pdf
>>>> 
>>>> The preflight checker also claims that the render frame “Object is a placed PDF”, which I guess the output is, but that seems misleading given the goal of the render frame.
>>>> 
>>>> I’ve put a “Collect for output” version of the scribus project here:
>>>> 
>>>> https://fiddlernet.net/temp/poster.tar.gz
>>>> 
>>>> My only guess is that it might be related to the System Integrity Protection (SIP) introduced in macOS 10.11. I get the error whether I start by opening Scribus via the App icon, or by running `/Applications/Scribus.app/Contents/MacOS/Scribus` from a terminal.
>>>> 
>>>> Any suggestions on how to handle this are welcome. The error message doesn’t provide much guidance.
> 
> 
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