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hardcopy error

hardcopy error

by Zak Zarychta -
Number of replies: 3
Any help with the following would be greatly appreciated.
Regards,
Zak

When trying to generate a hardcopy of a single file I get no errors for the one column option. However for the two column option I get the the following error

2 errors occured while generating hardcopy:

  • Failed to convert TeX to PDF with command 'cd /opt/webwork/webwork2/htdocs/tmp/FYO-00138/hardcopy/work.8pYwsM_P && /usr/bin/pdflatex --shell-escape >pdflatex.stdout 2>pdflatex.stderr hardcopy' (exit=1 signal=0 core=0).
  • First error in TeX log is:
    ! Missing } inserted. <inserted text> } l.332 \ifdefined\nocolumns\else \end{multicols} \fi
Even though I can then generate the hardcopy for a single student I would prefer to generate copies for multiple students. When this is attempted I get the following error

4 errors occured while generating hardcopy:

  • Failed to convert TeX to PDF with command 'cd /opt/webwork/webwork2/htdocs/tmp/FYO-00138/hardcopy/work.vIgo4ikP && /usr/bin/pdflatex --shell-escape >pdflatex.stdout 2>pdflatex.stderr hardcopy' (exit=72057594037927935 signal=127 core=128).
  • No TeX log was found.
  • Failed to rename 'hardcopy.pdf' to 'FYO-00138.multiuser.APS_2017.pdf' in directory '/opt/webwork/webwork2/htdocs/tmp/FYO-00138/hardcopy/work.vIgo4ikP':
  • Final hardcopy file '/opt/webwork/webwork2/htdocs/tmp/FYO-00138/hardcopy/work.vIgo4ikP/hardcopy.pdf' not found after calling 'generate_hardcopy_pdf': No such file or directory
No TeX files are generated.

In reply to Zak Zarychta

Re: hardcopy error

by Danny Glin -
Does this happen for all homework sets? If not, there's probably some weird LaTeX code generated by one of the problems that is causing this.

I suggest taking a look at the hardcopy.tex file to see whats going on around line 332. If that is at the end of one problem, then that problem is likely the culprit.

If that doesn't work, I recommend trying each individual problem in its own homework set to see which ones may work.
In reply to Danny Glin

Re: hardcopy error

by Jeffrey Adler -
I have a similar problem that is not related to one- vs two-column format. If I try to generate hardcopy for an individual problem set, it works(*), but if I try to generate hardcopy for certain pairs of problem sets, then I get a variety of errors. (Most of my attempts are in two-column format. I tried one-column format only to see if it made a difference. Apparently, it doesn't.)

I have a counterexample that involves only 3 problems, but cannot see anything wrong in the source of any of the problems.

I tried to generate a spreadsheet showing precisely which problem sets worked with which. This involved attempting to generate a lot of documents over the course of a few hours. Patterns did emerge. However, I can't draw any conclusions because, for some reason, I got different results at the end of the process than at the beginning. That is, even if could generate hard copy for a particular collection of problem sets at the beginning of the process, I couldn't always do so at the end, and vice versa. Is there any plausible explanation for this behavior?

Checking the TeX file is not so helpful. The place where the error message is generated can be at the beginning of a problem set that plays well with others, and so the trouble is apparently elsewhere. I would give an example of an error message but, as indicated above, I am having trouble getting consistent results. For example, below is an error message I'm getting now. But the same operation gave me a much worse message a few hours ago, and failed to generate any document at all.

2 errors occured while generating hardcopy:

  • Failed to convert TeX to PDF with command 'cd /opt/webwork/webwork2/htdocs/tmp/MATH-221-2018F-MWTh/hardcopy/work.nO2RX982 && /usr/bin/pdflatex --shell-escape >pdflatex.stdout 2>pdflatex.stderr hardcopy' (exit=1 signal=0 core=0).
  • First error in TeX log is:
    ! Missing control sequence inserted. <inserted text> \inaccessible l.2013 E valuate the limit Please don't say `\def ...
In reply to Jeffrey Adler

Re: hardcopy error

by Andras Balogh -
Maybe you could post which three problems you are working with.

If you find the cause of the problem please submit a bug report, so that it gets fixed and we don't all see it over and over again.