[OS X TeX] Latest TeXLive 2020 updates are killers

[Murray Eisenberg]

On 4 Oct2020, at 1:31 PM, Herbert Schulz <herbs at wideopenwest.com> wrote:
> 
>> On Oct 4, 2020, at 11:56 AM, Murray Eisenberg <murrayeisenberg at gmail.com> wrote:
>> 
>> As reported by Tine Wilde in a previous message here, so for me things have gone very wrong since the latest updates (via TeXLive Utility): a book-length document using the memoir document class chokes on the preamble.
>> 
>> In response to my post https://tex.stackexchange.com/q/565360/13492, “egreg” replied that an update to memoir (specifically, to memhfixc.sty) didn’t get added to CTAN yet but should be available soon.
>> 
>> So if Tine Wilde’s document used memoir, perhaps that will fix things.
>> 
>> Not knowing how long it will be before the memoir update becomes available — or whether, in fact, that will cure all the ills of the 2020-10-03 LaTeX updates, I’m tempted to re-install TeXLive 2020. BUT…there have been some crucial updates to packages since the original appearance of TeXLive 2020. So..
>> 
>> How might one revert to an earlier version of the TeXLive 2020 system _and_ do all updates EXCEPT those around October 1 that broke things?
>> 
> 
> David Carlise suggested a temporary fix until the memoir class files are updated, specifically memhfixc.sty. I enclose a version that may help until memoir is updated.
> 
> <memhfixc.sty>
> 
> Just put the file in the same folder as your root tex file.
> 
> The file
> 
> <test.tex>
> 
> that failed before seems to typeset fine with this temporary fix.
> 


That temporary fix saves my skin! Thank you!

It now lets my memoir-using book source compile — PROVIDED that I switch from from backend=bibtex to backend=biber as the option to biblatex.

The weird error if I use biblatex with backend=bibtex (which used to be faster by several seconds than when using biber) is as follows (from the .blg file):

This is BibTeX, Version 0.99d (TeX Live 2020)
Capacity: max_strings=200000, hash_size=200000, hash_prime=170003
The top-level auxiliary file: topology.aux
The style file: biblatex.bst
"front/preface.aux" has a wrong extension---line 47 of file topology.aux
 : \@input{"front/preface.aux"
 :                            }
I'm skipping whatever remains of this command
"back/backmatter.aux" has a wrong extension---line 10220 of file topology.aux
 : \@input{"back/backmatter.aux"
 :                              }
I'm skipping whatever remains of this command

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Murray Eisenberg			murrayeisenberg at gmail.com
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