Startup Error "List or Blob required"

[robbielyman]

Description

When opening a LaTeX file in a project I get the following error:

After this it appears that VimTeX fails to load; expected commands like gf, \ll and others do not work, and :VimtexInfo returns "Not an editor command".

Steps to reproduce

Minimal test file:

vim.g.maplocallleader = '\\'
vim.cmd 'packadd packer.nvim'

return require('packer').startup(function(use)
	use 'lervag/vimtex'
end)

Minimal test tex file: (opening test.tex as a new file works fine. After writing this and invoking :e preamble.tex I get the error above.)

\documentclass{article}
\input{preamble}

\begin{document}
\input{content}
\end{document}

Expected behavior

Vimtex to load

Actual behavior

The error mentioned above:

Do you use a latexmkrc file?

No

VimtexInfo

This is what I get when running `:VimtexInfo` on the above file after saving it.
I also get a similar error to the one described above.

System info
  OS: macOS 11.5.2 (20G95)
  Vim version: NVIM v0.6.0-dev+368-g9337fff8a
  Has clientserver: true
  Servername: /var/folders/2y/hwll5x9j6271lr30klvck8f80000gn/T/nvimmPPTRh/0

If I instead run :VimtexInfo on a completely blank TeX document I get

System info
  OS: macOS 11.5.2 (20G95)
  Vim version: NVIM v0.6.0-dev+368-g9337fff8a
  Has clientserver: true
  Servername: /var/folders/2y/hwll5x9j6271lr30klvck8f80000gn/T/nvimmPPTRh/0

VimTeX project: test2
  base: test2.tex
  root: /Users/rylee/.config/nvim
  tex: /Users/rylee/.config/nvim/test2.tex
  main parser: current file
  document class: 
  compiler: latexmk
    engine: -pdf
    options:
      -verbose
      -file-line-error
      -synctex=1
      -interaction=nonstopmode
    callback: 1
    continuous: 1
    executable: latexmk
  viewer: General
  qf method: LaTeX logfile

[clason]

I cannot reproduce this (same Neovim version on macOS). Make sure you don't have stale packages lying around (set packpath= in your init.vim and add vimtex to rtp directly as in the issue template).

Also, how did you install Neovim?

[robbielyman]

brew install --HEAD. I'll try that suggestion now

[clason]

Can you try building directly from the repo?

[robbielyman]

sure, I can try that. It started breaking on an earlier version of neovim after I did :PackerSync.

[clason]

yeah, there were some vim patches related to blobs that got ported recently, but I wouldn't expect such breakage.

[robbielyman]

I built neovim from source, and now I get the same error with the following init.vim:

set nocompatible
set packpath=
let &runtimepath  = '~/.local/share/nvim/site/pack/packer/start/vimtex,' . &runtimepath
let &runtimepath .= ',~/.local/share/nvim/site/pack/packer/start/vimtex/after'
filetype plugin indent on
syntax enable

[clason]

Hmm, that's the same I do. Maybe I'm not following the steps exactly. Could you make them more explicit ("step 1, step 2, step 3... crash?")

(Step 1 should be nvim --clean -u init.vim ...)

[robbielyman]

Step 1: nvim --clean -u ~/.config/nvim/minit.vim (that's what I've called it)
Step 2: :e test.tex
Step 3: Type in

\documentclass{article}
\input{preamble.tex}
\begin{document}
arst
\end{document}

Step 4: :w, :e preamble.tex gives the crash.

ETA: I tried (in my normal neovim setup) removing and reinstalling vimtex with Packer, but the problem persists.

[clason]

Nope, sorry, can't reproduce. Do I actually need to type it (because I just copy&paste, because I'm lazy...)

[robbielyman]

Surely you shouldn't need to type it.

[robbielyman]

Doing commit = "fbe94cd3eaed89d6c1236af486466b1fcc3b82c9" in Packer fixes the issue for me, but any newer and I still get the error. So for me the problem commit is 507924a

[lervag]

So, first: Sorry for this. I recently made some changes to the kpsewhich caching which makes old cache files invalid. I documented it in the commit log and was planning to announce this in the next release. However, I now see that it is better to give a proper and helpful error message.

Please update, and if required, run :VimtexClearCache kpsewhich.

[robbielyman]

The plugin now does load and functions fine, but I get asked to run :VimtexClearCache kpsewhich essentially in all situations where previously there was an error. Running the command does fix the issue each time. Should I expect this business of needing to run the command a lot to sort itself out over time?

[lervag]

The plugin now does load and functions fine, but I get asked to run :VimtexClearCache kpsewhich essentially in all situations where previously there was an error. Running the command does fix the issue each time. Should I expect this business of needing to run the command a lot to sort itself out over time?

No, this is very unexpected. I'm sorry for the invonvenience!

So, how to debug this... It could be helpful to see the content of your cache file. It should live at ~/.cache/vimtex/kpsewhich.json; I believe this is the same for MacOS as on Linux. Could you copy the file (or some of it, if it is very long) here?

Perhaps there's a minor bug I'm unaware of. So another alternative is that you make a fully minimal example. If you can make a reproducible sample, then I should be able to fix it.

[robbielyman]

I actually don't have a file at ~/.cache/vimtex/kpsewhich.json!

[robbielyman]

oh you know what, this is because I use TinyTeX rather than TeXLive. I did tlmgr search --global kpsewhich which gave me the ltxfileinfo package as a result. Installing that with tlmgr install ltxfileinfo and then running fmtutil-sys -all seems to have solved the issue for me.

[robbielyman]

Sorry, I spoke too soon; the errors are still cropping up. It is odd that there is no file at ~/.cache/vimtex/kpsewhich.json

[lervag]

Yes, very odd indeed!

Can you try your original minimal example again, but this time add let g:vimtex_cache_root = '.' to the test.vim file? Does it work now, when you follow the outlined steps? Does this create the kpsewhich.json file?

Could you run nvim --headless -u test.vim with this test.vim and show me the output?

set nocompatible
" NB: Use the proper path here - I may have been mistaken!
set runtimepath^=~/.local/share/nvim/site/pack/packer/start/vimtex
filetype plugin on

setfiletype tex

let s:cache = vimtex#cache#open('kpsewhich')
unsilent echo s:cache
quitall

[robbielyman]

here's that output (with newlines added)

{'has': function('39'), 
'read': function('42'), 
'data': {}, 
'clear': function('43'), 
'name': 'kpsewhich', 
'persistent': 1, 
'set': function('40'), 
'modified': 0, 
'local': 0, 
'write': function('41'), 
'get': function('38'), 
'ftime': -1, 
'path': '/Users/rylee/.cache/vimtex/kpsewhich.json'}% 

[robbielyman]

When I add let g:vimtex_cache_root = '.' to the minimal .vim file, not only does it run without errors, there is a kspewhich.json file created (in my root directory), whose contents are:

{"preamble.tex": [["", "/Users/rylee"]]}

This is after the following steps:

• nvim --clean -u ~/.config/nvim/minit.vim
• :e test.tex
• type

\documentclass{article}
\input{preamble.tex}
\begin{document}
[...]
\end{document}

• :w, I tried gf on preamble.tex and neovim stopped responding until I did <C-c> (Presumably there are lots of files in my root directory to check whether there exists preamble.tex)
• :e preamble.tex, write some stuff and save.

[robbielyman]

In case it's useful, ~/.cache/vimtex/ has plenty of .json files in it of the form bibcomplete%path%to%paper%main.json or bibfiles%..., refcomplete%... and one called pkgcomplete.json, just no kpsewhich.json.

[robbielyman]

I got a little ambitious and just put g:vimtex_cache_root = '/Users/rylee/.cache/vimtex' in my ~/.config/nvim/plugin/vimtex.vim file and so far I haven't been asked to do :VimtexClearCache kpsewhich in situations where I otherwise have been today.

[lervag]

I got a little ambitious and just put g:vimtex_cache_root = '/Users/rylee/.cache/vimtex' in my ~/.config/nvim/plugin/vimtex.vim file and so far I haven't been asked to do :VimtexClearCache kpsewhich in situations where I otherwise have been today.

Interesting. Does the file exist now?

[lervag]

I have to admit this issue annoys me, because as far as I can see, everything should work; you should not need to set the g:vimtex_cache_root yourself, especially if you use the default value. And I get annoyed when I don't understand things... :p

[robbielyman]

Yeah, now it has content like the following

{"./figures/#1.pdf_tex": [["", "/Users/rylee"], ["", "/Users/rylee/Research/Papers/TrainTracksonGraphsofGroups"], ["", "/Users/rylee/Dropbox/Research/Papers/TrainTracksonGraphsofGroups"], ["", "/Users/rylee/Research/Papers/SimplyConnectedatInfinity"]]}

[lervag]

Great, that looks quite right. What happens if you comment out let g:vimtex_cache_root ... now? Does it stop working?

[robbielyman]

It seems to still work!

[lervag]

Great. I'll close the issue, then, even thought I still don't understand everything... :p