TexLive updates fail with TexLive-2021 on OSX10.14.6 (tar argument list too long)

[mjmeijer]

Using texlive GUI fails and resorting to terminal gives this:

$ sudo /usr/local/texlive/2021/bin/universal-darwin/tlmgr --repository https://mirror.koddos.net/CTAN/systems/texlive/tlnet --machine-readable --persistent-downloads update --all
Password:
start load https://mirror.koddos.net/CTAN/systems/texlive/tlnet
finish load https://mirror.koddos.net/CTAN/systems/texlive/tlnet
location-url https://mirror.koddos.net/CTAN/systems/texlive/tlnet
total-bytes 494539381
end-of-header
Can't exec "tar": Argument list too long at /usr/local/texlive/2021/tlpkg/TeXLive/TLUtils.pm line 686.
/usr/local/texlive/2021/bin/universal-darwin/tlmgr: system(tar -cf /usr/local/texlive/2021/tlpkg/backups/noto.r54512.tar texmf-dist/doc/fonts/noto texmf-dist/fonts/enc/dvips/noto/nto_2banio.enc
[ many lines ommtted to allow posting]
texmf-dist/fonts/vf/google/noto/NotoSerif-ThinItalic-tosf-t1.vf texmf-dist/fonts/vf/google/noto/NotoSerif-ThinItalic-tosf-ts1.vf texmf-dist/tex/latex/noto tlpkg/tlpobj/noto.tlpobj) failed in /usr/local/texlive/2021, status -1 at /usr/local/texlive/2021/tlpkg/TeXLive/TLUtils.pm line 690.

[mjmeijer]

full terminal output.txt

[mjmeijer]

On OSX 10.14.6 we fined:
$ tar --version
bsdtar 2.8.3 - libarchive 2.8.3

[amaxwell]

Thanks for the report. I've sent this to the TeX Live email list, as there's nothing I can do about it. As a workaround, you can manually select all packages except noto for update in TeX Live Utility.

[amaxwell]

See https://tug.org/pipermail/tex-live/2021-October/047476.html for an explanation and fix.