Subject: texlive-* packages fail to build non-deterministically

From: Ludovic Courtès <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 27 Apr 2021 17:39:05 +0200

Some texlive- packages fail to build non-deterministically.  This one is
on powerpc64le-linux from current master (commit
d904abe0768293b2322dbf355b6e41d94e769d78), but ISTR we saw the same kind
of problem on other architectures before:

--8<---------------cut here---------------start------------->8---
Processing file fileerr.dtx (help) -> h.tex
                            (scroll) -> s.tex
                            (edit) -> e.tex
                            (batch) -> q.tex
                            (run) -> r.tex
                            (exit) -> x.tex
File fileerr.dtx ended by \endinput.
Lines  processed: 119
Comments removed: 100
Comments  passed: 0
Codelines passed: 10

***********************************************************
*
* To finish the installation you have to move the following
* files into a directory searched by TeX:
*
* All the files with extension `.sty' and `.tex'
* Note there also may be a file .tex which is `invisible'
* on some operating systems.
*
* To produce the documentation run the .dtx files through LaTeX.
*
* Happy TeXing
***********************************************************

* Finally trying to make a file `.tex'.
* (Placed at the end of this run, as this
* may fail on some operating systems.)

Generating file(s) .tex

realloc(): invalid next size
command "luatex" "-interaction=nonstopmode" "-output-directory=build" "&luatex" "tools.ins" failed with signal 6
builder for `/gnu/store/k9v4w4vc9q22yrrl5ggmpcymidwcbamf-texlive-latex-tools-51265.drv' failed with exit code 1
--8<---------------cut here---------------end--------------->8---

Notice the “realloc” message (from glibc) suggesting heap corruption.

Often, simply retrying yields a successful build.

Ludo’.