bugGNU roff - Bugs: bug #67599, bootstrap fails after git pull

 
 

bug #67599: bootstrap fails after git pull

Submitter:  Deri James <deri>
Submitted:  Thu 09 Oct 2025 03:30:25 PM UTC
   
 
Category:  Core Severity:  4 - Important
Item Group:  Build/Installation Status:  Invalid
Privacy:  Public Assigned to:  deri
Open/Closed:  Closed Planned Release:  None
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Thu 09 Oct 2025 06:05:14 PM UTC, comment #9: 

Setting status and crediting Deri with the "kill".

I'm attaching--or trying to--my "make-groff-fast" script that I use with great frequency.  One thing that it does is run "./bootstrap" on every build.  This doesn't take a lot of time if there's nothing to do, and there usually isn't.

(A version of the script without "-fast" uses default compiler options and does "make distcheck".)

(file #57709)

G. Branden Robinson <gbranden>
Group administrator
Thu 09 Oct 2025 05:59:14 PM UTC, comment #8: 

I found this:-

dietpi@tvhnew:~/groff/gnulib $ git status
HEAD detached at 0ba13435a9
nothing to commit, working tree clean

I checked out master and pull-ed. Bootstrap now works. So I suspect the issue only affects people who keep 1 groff directory and do bootstrap infrequently. Thinking my gnulib was sufficiently old that bootstrap was unable to refresh itself, or I'm "banned", (happened a few times at various pubs). Now the gnulib status says:-

dietpi@tvhnew:~/groff/gnulib $ git status
HEAD detached at d2198ee5c6
nothing to commit, working tree clean

So all good.

Deri James <deri>
Group Member
Thu 09 Oct 2025 05:00:49 PM UTC, comment #7: 

The dist archive compiles fine (no texlive) as I thought it would. :-

============================================================================
Testsuite summary for GNU roff 1.23.0.4049-18287
============================================================================
# TOTAL: 280
# PASS:  271
# SKIP:  4
# XFAIL: 5
# FAIL:  0
# XPASS: 0
# ERROR: 0
============================================================================

GNUlib clone now completed

dietpi@tvhnew:~ $ git clone git://git.sv.gnu.org/gnulib.git
Cloning into 'gnulib'...
remote: Counting objects: 334256, done.
remote: Compressing objects: 100% (42915/42915), done.
remote: Total 334256 (delta 297044), reused 328372 (delta 291212)
Receiving objects: 100% (334256/334256), 94.46 MiB | 20.00 KiB/s, done.
Resolving deltas: 100% (297044/297044), done.
Updating files: 100% (12370/12370), done.


Deri James <deri>
Group Member
Thu 09 Oct 2025 04:56:17 PM UTC, comment #6: 


> Does this mean that even the mirrors are failing?


I can git clone https://https.git ... rg/git/gnulib.git.

Perhaps Deri got IP blocked or something? Probably worth asking on savannah-hackers-public.

Collin Funk <collinfunk>
Thu 09 Oct 2025 04:45:29 PM UTC, comment #5: 

At 2025-10-09T12:36:46-0400, Collin Funk wrote:

> Follow-up Comment #4, bug #67599 (group groff):
>
> Branden, did you update the bootstrap script the most recent time you
> updated Gnulib?


Sure did.


commit 18287e343eed04e82fb7069a923edca73971ad76 (HEAD, origin/master, origin/HEAD)
Author: G. Branden Robinson <g.branden.robinson@gmail.com>
Date:   Tue Oct 7 14:07:03 2025 -0500

    bootstrap: Resync with gnulib upstream.

diff --git a/ChangeLog b/ChangeLog
index ac61f9a3f..16c227183 100644
--- a/ChangeLog
+++ b/ChangeLog
@@ -1,3 +1,7 @@
+2025-10-07  G. Branden Robinson <g.branden.robinson@gmail.com>
+
+       * bootstrap: Resync with upstream.
+
 2025-10-07  G. Branden Robinson <g.branden.robinson@gmail.com>

        * gnulib: Update to stable/2025-07.
diff --git a/bootstrap b/bootstrap
index cacb3d5fe..a15c4f574 100755
--- a/bootstrap
+++ b/bootstrap
@@ -3,7 +3,7 @@

 # Bootstrap this package from checked-out sources.

-scriptversion=2024-07-04.10; # UTC
+scriptversion=2025-06-10.02; # UTC
...


> Savannah is slow and frequently down. The issue is more frequently
> noticed with Gnulib, which has a large git repository.
>
> Bruno Haible adjusted the bootstrap script to use Savannah's read-only
> git mirrors [1]. These are much faster and fail much less often.
>
> For what it is worth, I cannot even connect to
> https://git.savan ... rg/cgit/groff.git at the moment to check
> recent commits.


Neither can I.

> My suspicion is that this is what is causing the problems.


Does this mean that even the mirrors are failing?

> [1]
> https://github.co ... 3fc69ba1c3afd73e3


G. Branden Robinson <gbranden>
Group administrator
Thu 09 Oct 2025 04:36:42 PM UTC, comment #4: 

Branden, did you update the bootstrap script the most recent time you updated Gnulib?

Savannah is slow and frequently down. The issue is more frequently noticed with Gnulib, which has a large git repository.

Bruno Haible adjusted the bootstrap script to use Savannah's read-only git mirrors [1]. These are much faster and fail much less often.

For what it is worth, I cannot even connect to https://git.savan ... rg/cgit/groff.git at the moment to check recent commits.

My suspicion is that this is what is causing the problems.

[1] https://github.co ... 3fc69ba1c3afd73e3

Collin Funk <collinfunk>
Thu 09 Oct 2025 04:30:27 PM UTC, comment #3: 
G. Branden Robinson <gbranden>
Group administrator
Thu 09 Oct 2025 04:29:20 PM UTC, comment #2: 

Nope.  Bupkus.  No error screen, just silent contempt.  Okay, I'll try some kind of paste bin site.

G. Branden Robinson <gbranden>
Group administrator
Thu 09 Oct 2025 04:27:59 PM UTC, comment #1: 

Hi Deri,

I suspect all the trouble you're having is due to the failing gnulib submodule update.

I did an aarch64 build on my tablet after pushing (as I nearly always do) and it completed and installed successfully.

I'm trying[1] to attach a distribution archive (made with `make dist`) of "origin/master".  You should be able to build this just fine with the usual "./configure && make".

Please let me know if that's not the case.

[1] The attachment size limit is ~16MB after quoting and whatnot.  The size of the archive on disk is 8.5MB, so...fingers crossed.

...later...

Nope, Savannah is cross with me and just completely ignores my attempt to "submit changes" to the ticket.  Will try to attach the file as a separate operation.

G. Branden Robinson <gbranden>
Group administrator
Thu 09 Oct 2025 03:30:25 PM UTC, original submission:  

I'm having trouble running bootstrap on debian trixie. Groff had not been built for several months and recently the rpi4b has been updated from bullseye -> bookworm -> trixie.

dietpi@tvhnew:~/groff $ git pull
remote: Counting objects: 11274, done.
remote: Compressing objects: 100% (4430/4430), done.
remote: Total 11274 (delta 8845), reused 8633 (delta 6828)
Receiving objects: 100% (11274/11274), 5.75 MiB | 19.00 KiB/s, done.
Resolving deltas: 100% (8845/8845), done.
From https://git.savannah.gnu.org/git/groff
   1fc453dfa..18287e343  master     -> origin/master
Fetching submodule gnulib
fatal: read error: Connection reset by peer
fatal: read error: Connection reset by peer
Errors during submodule fetch:
        gnulib
        gnulib

dietpi@tvhnew:~/groff $ git pull
Updating 1fc453dfa..18287e343
Fast-forward
 .gitignore                                                       |    2 +
 ANNOUNCE                                                         |   29 +-
 ChangeLog                                                        | 9450 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++-
 ChangeLog.old                                                    |    2 +-
[...]
 create mode 100755 tmac/tests/doc_format-degenerate-input-sanely.sh
 create mode 100755 tmac/tests/doc_hyphenation-mode-restoration-works.sh
 create mode 100755 tmac/tests/doc_vertical-margins-are-correct.sh
 create mode 100755 tmac/tests/s_vertical-margins-are-correct.sh

dietpi@tvhnew:~/groff $ cd gnulib

dietpi@tvhnew:~/groff/gnulib $ git pull
fatal: read error: Connection reset by peer

dietpi@tvhnew:~/groff/gnulib $ cd ..

dietpi@tvhnew:~/groff $ ./bootstrap
./bootstrap: Bootstrapping from checked-out groff sources...
./bootstrap: getting gnulib files...
fatal: read error: Connection reset by peer
Unable to fetch in submodule path 'gnulib'; trying to directly fetch d2198ee5c6fa20bdaf44edcb4cef86548df29379:
fatal: read error: Connection reset by peer
fatal: Fetched in submodule path 'gnulib', but it did not contain d2198ee5c6fa20bdaf44edcb4cef86548df29379. Direct fetching of that commit failed.
dietpi@tvhnew:~/groff $ cd build
dietpi@tvhnew:~/groff/build $ make -j
CDPATH="${ZSH_VERSION+.}:" && cd .. && /bin/bash '/home/pi/groff/build-aux/missing' aclocal-1.16 -I m4 -I gnulib_m4
/home/pi/groff/build-aux/missing: line 81: aclocal-1.16: command not found
WARNING: 'aclocal-1.16' is missing on your system.
         You should only need it if you modified 'acinclude.m4' or
         'configure.ac' or m4 files included by 'configure.ac'.
         The 'aclocal' program is part of the GNU Automake package:
         <https://www.gnu.org/software/automake>
         It also requires GNU Autoconf, GNU m4 and Perl in order to run:
         <https://www.gnu.org/software/autoconf>
         <https://www.gnu.org/software/m4/>
         <https://www.perl.org/>
make: *** [Makefile:6527: ../aclocal.m4] Error 127

dietpi@tvhnew:~/groff/build $ sudo apt install automake
automake is already the newest version (1:1.17-4).
Summary:
  Upgrading: 0, Installing: 0, Removing: 0, Not Upgrading: 0

dietpi@tvhnew:~/groff/build $ aclocal --version
aclocal (GNU automake) 1.17
Copyright (C) 2024 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
License GPLv2+: GNU GPL version 2 or later <https://gnu.org/licenses/gpl-2.0.html>
This is free software: you are free to change and redistribute it.
There is NO WARRANTY, to the extent permitted by law.

Written by Tom Tromey <tromey@redhat.com>
       and Alexandre Duret-Lutz <adl@gnu.org>.
dietpi@tvhnew:~/groff/build $

The problem appears to be in the gnulib submodule. aclocal is at 1.17 on trixie. It may also be an issue with git.sv.gnu.org, I am currently cloning the complete gnulib.git (to a separate directory and it is being throttled to about 15KiB/s.

Deri James <deri>
Group Member

 

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file #57709:  make-groff-fast added by gbranden (2.2KiB - application/octet-stream)

(Note: upload size limit is set to 4.0MiB, after insertion of the required escape characters.)

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    Follow 5 latest changes.

    Date Changed by Updated Field Previous Value => Replaced by
    2025-10-09 gbranden Attached File- Added make-groff-fast, #57709
        StatusNone Invalid
        Assigned toNone deri
    2025-10-09 deri StatusNeed Info None
        Open/ClosedOpen Closed

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