TeX Live and MacTeX ⇒ "sudo tlmgr backup --clean --all" is doing nothing

[marek_step]

Hello all!


I have TeXLive 2017 installed and I removed the old one from 2016. I update regularly with tlmgr in my shell. Only issue I have had this morning, was the repository:

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tlmgr: The TeX Live versions supported by the repository
http://mirror.unl.edu/ctan/systems/texlive/tlnet
  (2016--2016)
do not include the version of the local installation
  (2017).
  
  tlmgr option repository ctan

Here the command I issued as suggested in the manual. But now the cleanup does not work:

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sudo tlmgr backup --clean --all

This does nothing! So I made my cleanup "manually" by:

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cd /usr/local/texlive/2017/tlpkg/backups
sudo rm -rf *.tar.xz

Any hints?

Best greetings marek

[thomasb]

Try a Ubuntu or Linux forum, maybe...

[m_v]

@marek_step: Right after the upgrade, there may have been only one set of backup remaining, which won't be removed by default. If you want to remove that, try running

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sudo tlmgr backup --all --clean=0

Append --dry-run to see what files will be removed without taking any action:

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sudo tlmgr backup --all --clean=0 --dry-run

[Ijon Tichy]

@m_v Do you really think, answering to a question about TeX Live 2016/2017, that depend on a specific mirror, that does not provide TeX Live 2016 any longer, is useful?

[m_v]

Yes, I do. I encountered the same issue with TeXLive 2021 and want to document the solution.

[Ijon Tichy]

But IMHO the original problem was an update problem, that happened because the mirror still provided TeX Live 2016 and the local installation was already TeX Live 2017. So IMHO using another repository should have been the best suggestion. But every answer to the question is more or less speculative and nobody really can say, what could have been or was the real solution for the problem of the original post.