Broken symlink left by select code when selected port is deactivated causes poppler and other ports using aclocal to fail during configuration.

[lukasz@…]

I cannot execute port upgrade outdated because of error while upgrading poppler.

This is my error:

sudo port upgrade outdated
Password:
--->  Computing dependencies for poppler
--->  Configuring poppler
Error: org.macports.configure for port poppler returned: autoreconf failure: command execution failed
Please see the log file for port poppler for details:
    /opt/local/var/macports/logs/_opt_local_var_macports_sources_sea.us.rsync.macports.org_release_tarballs_ports_graphics_poppler/poppler/main.log
Error: Unable to upgrade port: 1
To report a bug, follow the instructions in the guide:
    http://guide.macports.org/#project.tickets

Please see attached log file.

Unfortunately I was not able to execute port uninstall poppler, as it would remove all dependencies, and I wanted to avoid it. I did not find the "force" way.

[lukasz@…]

Log file.

[neverpanic (Clemens Lang)]

What does port provides /opt/local/share/aclocal/wxwin.m4 print? Is /opt/local/share/aclocal/wxwin.m4 a symlink, and if it is, is it broken (i.e. dangling, pointing to a non-existant file)?

I think some port used to provide this file, but did not register it, and now it's a leftover remnant that should just be deleted. I remember at least one previous instance where the same problem occured and was solved this way.

[neverpanic (Clemens Lang)]

Also, when reporting tickets against ports, please set the port field and Cc the maintainer, if any.

[lukasz@…]

Hello,

Result of port provides /opt/local/share/aclocal/wxwin.m4:

/opt/local/share/aclocal/wxwin.m4 is not provided by a MacPorts port.

Result of ls -l /opt/local/share/aclocal/wxwin.m4:

/opt/local/Library/Frameworks/wxWidgets.framework/Versions/wxWidgets/3.0/share/aclocal/wxwin.m4

Which is a broken link.

I removed /opt/local/share/aclocal/wxwin.m4 and all went fine.

Thank you for such fast response.

[neverpanic (Clemens Lang)]

So the port that used to install /opt/local/Library/Frameworks/wxWidgets.framework/Versions/wxWidgets/3.0/share/aclocal/wxwin.m4 is at fault here, because it didn't register the symlink.

Since this sounds like the wxWidgets-3.0 port, I'm Cc'ing their maintainers.

[mojca (Mojca Miklavec)]

The symlink /opt/local/share/aclocal/wxwin.m4 comes from port select wxWidgets wxWidgets-3.0. Compare with:

> ll /opt/local/bin/python
lrwxr-xr-x  1 root  admin    24B 21 jan  2012 /opt/local/bin/python -> /opt/local/bin/python2.7

> port provides /opt/local/bin/python
/opt/local/bin/python is not provided by a MacPorts port.

> sudo port -f deactivate python27

> ll /opt/local/bin/python
lrwxr-xr-x  1 root  admin    24B 21 jan  2012 /opt/local/bin/python -> /opt/local/bin/python2.7

> /opt/local/bin/python --version
-bash: /opt/local/bin/python: No such file or directory

This is the second error report with exactly the same symptoms I've heard about recently.

Maybe someone should "revisit" the "port select" code.

Port select aside, it might be helpful to install that single file (/opt/local/share/aclocal/wxwin.m4) unconditionally (by some standalone port which would then be a dependency of all wxWidgets-based ports), but it seems like a tiny bit of an overkill to me if a port would install just that single file.

[lukasz@…]

Cc Me!

[lukasz@…]

Cc Me!

[dbevans (David B. Evans)]

I was a bit confused at first by the discussion here but after some experimentation I was able to reproduce the error.

Restating the situation:

The configuration error here is due to the fact that, at the point of failure, a broken symlink is installed in /opt/local/share/aclocal which aclocal will not tolerate. The result is that any port, not just poppler, that uses aclocal (typically invoked by autoreconf) in the configuration process will fail.

In this case, the symlink in question is

$ ls -l /opt/local/share/aclocal/wxwin.m4
lrwxr-xr-x  1 root  admin  95 May 18 06:15 /opt/local/share/aclocal/wxwin.m4 -> /opt/local/Library/Frameworks/wxWidgets.framework/Versions/wxWidgets/3.0/share/aclocal/wxwin.m4

which is typically created by the commands

$ sudo port install wxWidgets-3.0
$ sudo port select wxWidgets wxWidgets-3.0

or

$ sudo port install wxWidgets-2.8
$ sudo port select wxWidgets wxWidgets-2.8

At this point deactivating the target port will break the symlink.

The following command sequence will recreate the reported issue

$ sudo port install wxWidgets-3.0
$ sudo port select wxWidgets wxWidgets-3.0
$ sudo port deactivate wxWidgets-3.0
$ sudo port install poppler

As reported removing the broken symlink will heal the problem. Rather than doing this manually I would suggest just deselecting the deactivated port.

$ sudo port select wxWidgets none

It's interesting to note that this command will now appear to fail as follows

Selecting 'none' for 'wxWidgets' failed: symlink: /opt/local/etc/select/wxWidgets/current -> none: file already exists

but the symlink is, in fact, removed. It appears that the 'port select' code is smart enough to set its selection to none when the selected port is deactivated but not smart enough to actually remove the symlinks associated with the old selection.

[dbevans (David B. Evans)]

Replying to mojca@…:

Port select aside, it might be helpful to install that single file (/opt/local/share/aclocal/wxwin.m4) unconditionally (by some standalone port which would then be a dependency of all wxWidgets-based ports), but it seems like a tiny bit of an overkill to me if a port would install just that single file.

This won't work because wxwin.m4 is produced by both wxWidgets-2.8 and wxWidgets-3.0 and the two versions are quite different. This is apparently why wxwin.m4 was added to the wxWidget-select base file. It's a point of conflict between the two versions.

If legacy wxWidgets-2.8 could be removed, wxWidgets-3.0 could just install wxwin.m4 in /opt/local/share/aclocal and be done with it.