On 5/15/21 7:48 AM, William F Pokorny wrote:
> '/home/pokorny/bin/povr --version'

Grumble... No idea why I was adding single quotes to many of the 
commands. Run the commands without them. Old brain glitching. :-(

Bill P.

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hi,

William F Pokorny <ano### [at] anonymousorg> wrote:
> ...
> The cannot create state file is what I got too - with 'povr' - when
> trying reproduce your fork issue last night and not having permissions
> to write to the current directory.

had never seen a cannot create file error until reading this, then got one when
preparing to try TdG's granite macro.  :-)  turns out, having a (now)
non-existing directory in the .ini file "works" too.


regards, jr.

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William F Pokorny <ano### [at] anonymousorg> wrote:

> Let's start the debugging with the commands above.


> Bill P.

bald@Alienware ~/povray38/scenes/objects $ which povr
/home/bald/bin/povr

bald@Alienware ~/povray38/scenes/objects $ echo $PATH
/home/bald/bin:/home/bald/.local/bin:/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/sbin:/bin:/usr/games:/usr/local
/games:/snap/bin

bald@Alienware ~/povray38/scenes/objects $ /home/bald/bin/povr --version

bald@Alienware ~/povray38/scenes/objects $ ls -lt /home/bald/bin/povr
lrwxrwxrwx 1 bald bald 50 May 14 15:37 /home/bald/bin/povr ->
/home/povray/povray-3.8.0-x.povr_b0bcf6c0/bin/povr

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On 5/15/21 1:05 PM, Bald Eagle wrote:
> William F Pokorny <ano### [at] anonymousorg> wrote:
> 
>> Let's start the debugging with the commands above.
> 
> 
>> Bill P.
> 
> bald@Alienware ~/povray38/scenes/objects $ which povr
> /home/bald/bin/povr
> 
> bald@Alienware ~/povray38/scenes/objects $ echo $PATH
>
/home/bald/bin:/home/bald/.local/bin:/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/sbin:/bin:/usr/games:/usr/local
> /games:/snap/bin
> 
> bald@Alienware ~/povray38/scenes/objects $ /home/bald/bin/povr --version
> 
> bald@Alienware ~/povray38/scenes/objects $ ls -lt /home/bald/bin/povr
> lrwxrwxrwx 1 bald bald 50 May 14 15:37 /home/bald/bin/povr ->
> /home/povray/povray-3.8.0-x.povr_b0bcf6c0/bin/povr
> 
> 
Thanks.

OK, so it looks like you established a symbolic link from

/home/povray/povray-3.8.0-x.povr_b0bcf6c0/bin/povr

to:

/home/bald/bin/povr

There isnt' a bin directory shipped with
povray-3.8.0-x.povr_b0bcf6c0 so guessing you created it and the povr 
script/command within the directory?

---
I've spent some time trying to reproduce the null result and I can 
indeed do it if the file:

/home/povray/povray-3.8.0-x.povr_b0bcf6c0/bin/povr

is empty, but, the read and execute bits are set true. The command then 
just does nothing. So, a guess would be the file is empty - or just does 
nothing.

To run the in-place compiled code, that link target file should contain 
something like:

#!/bin/sh

#...

COMPILEDIR=/tmp/povray-3.8.0-x.povr_b0bcf6c0
unset POVINI
export POVINC=${COMPILEDIR}/include
${COMPILEDIR}/unix/povray $@

#...

---
Something else which could be tried if you think the contents of the 
file look OK, is to point your bin directory link at say the 'ls' 
command. My 'which ls' returns /bin/ls. So

ln -fs /bin/ls /home/bald/bin/povr

Then run again:

/home/bald/bin/povr --version

It should be it returns the ls command version. This would be a sanity 
test that nothing otherwise off with system sym links or something.

Bill P.

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hi,

William F Pokorny <ano### [at] anonymousorg> wrote:
> ...
>> /home/povray/povray-3.8.0-x.povr_b0bcf6c0/bin/povr
> There isnt' a bin directory shipped with
> povray-3.8.0-x.povr_b0bcf6c0 so guessing you created it and the povr
> script/command within the directory?

just chiming in on this point.  the script I provided installed povr, as a
package, in '/home/povray/povray-3.8.0-x.povr_b0bcf6c0/'.  (installed and owned
by "regular user" BE)


regards, jr.

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On 5/15/21 3:43 PM, jr wrote:
> hi,
> 
> William F Pokorny <ano### [at] anonymousorg> wrote:
>> ...
>>> /home/povray/povray-3.8.0-x.povr_b0bcf6c0/bin/povr
>> There isnt' a bin directory shipped with
>> povray-3.8.0-x.povr_b0bcf6c0 so guessing you created it and the povr
>> script/command within the directory?
> 
> just chiming in on this point.  the script I provided installed povr, as a
> package, in '/home/povray/povray-3.8.0-x.povr_b0bcf6c0/'.  (installed and owned
> by "regular user" BE)
> 
> 
Ah, OK. Then my guess is the sym link should be to the file:

/home/povray/povray-3.8.0-x.povr_b0bcf6c0/bin/povray

and that Bill can probably run

/home/povray/povray-3.8.0-x.povr_b0bcf6c0/bin/povray --version

In other words, he isn't really using the 'povr' wrapper script?

---
...I'm left, though, not understanding why he isn't getting a "command 
not found" message if the file:

/home/povray/povray-3.8.0-x.povr_b0bcf6c0/bin/povr

doesn't really exist on his system...

Bill P.

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hi,

William F Pokorny <ano### [at] anonymousorg> wrote:
> ...
> ...I'm left, though, not understanding why he isn't getting a "command
> not found" message if the file:
>
> /home/povray/povray-3.8.0-x.povr_b0bcf6c0/bin/povr
>
> doesn't really exist on his system...

agree that the executable should run invoked that way.  will not "butt in"
further, but, as I understand, the symlink in ~/bin points to a bona fide 'povr'
script.  (which only serves to deepen the mystery :-()


regards, jr.

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On 5/15/21 5:08 PM, jr wrote:
> hi,
> 
> William F Pokorny <ano### [at] anonymousorg> wrote:
>> ...
>> ...I'm left, though, not understanding why he isn't getting a "command
>> not found" message if the file:
>>
>> /home/povray/povray-3.8.0-x.povr_b0bcf6c0/bin/povr
>>
>> doesn't really exist on his system...
> 
> agree that the executable should run invoked that way.  will not "butt in"
> further, but, as I understand, the symlink in ~/bin points to a bona fide 'povr'
> script.  (which only serves to deepen the mystery :-()
> 
Do please speak up if you think of more, I'm reasonably lost as to what 
might be up. :-)

Bill P.

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Sorry for the delay.

Seems that somehow the povr script got deleted but the file was still there.


I redownloaded the file and edited it to read:

#!/bin/sh
INSTALLDIR=/home/povray/povray-3.8.0-x.povr_b0bcf6c0
export POVINC=${INSTALLDIR}/share/povray-3.8/include
#export POVINI=${INSTALLDIR}/etc/povray/3.8/povray.ini
unset POVINI
${INSTALLDIR}/bin/povray $@
exit $?

Seems to render the blob scene fine now.

Not sure how THAT happened.

Thanks for all the suggestions - that helped track down the issue.

Maybe I will do some more fine tuning on this tomorrow.

It's always something ridiculous.

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On 5/15/21 6:10 PM, Bald Eagle wrote:
> Sorry for the delay.
> 
> Seems that somehow the povr script got deleted but the file was still there.
> 
> 
> I redownloaded the file and edited it to read:
> 
> #!/bin/sh
> INSTALLDIR=/home/povray/povray-3.8.0-x.povr_b0bcf6c0
> export POVINC=${INSTALLDIR}/share/povray-3.8/include
> #export POVINI=${INSTALLDIR}/etc/povray/3.8/povray.ini
> unset POVINI
> ${INSTALLDIR}/bin/povray $@
> exit $?
> 
> Seems to render the blob scene fine now.
> 
> Not sure how THAT happened.
> 
> Thanks for all the suggestions - that helped track down the issue.
> 
> Maybe I will do some more fine tuning on this tomorrow.
> 
> It's always something ridiculous.
> 
Good to hear you've made progress.

I just popped back on because I just had the thought on the "failed to 
fork" message first reported. One thing which could cause the OS to run 
out of resources would be a script calling itself recursively - in an 
infinite way. Maybe?

Bill P.

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