LyX ⇒ Crash on pdf2 preview error

[baropalma]

Hi all,

I've been writing my dissertation using LyX, and I've been very happy with it so far. However I have an annoying problem now that I need some help in resolving. (I am semi-experienced with LyX, but really don't know much about what goes on "under the hood"...)

My document is crashing whenever I try to produce a preview, or to export to another format. I see the brief message "Error while previewing pdf2", and then LyX crashes, and I only see the generic Mac crash dialog (offering to ignore, report, or reopen). Unfortunately, when I pick "View Messages", I don't have time to see the actions log to see what is causing the error, since LyX crashes before I can read the messages.

One strange thing is this: my dissertation consists of a master document, with chapters as separate sub-documents. When I preview my most recent chapter by itself, there is no error. There is only the error/crash when I preview the master document. However: I have not modified the master document, nor the other sub-documents for a while. I assume it must have something to do with my bibliography, which is in BibTex format (the bibliography is not included in the sub-document, only in the master document). However, I can't figure out which citation is causing the problem. I've tried trial and error removing recently-modified citations, to no avail.

I'm going crazy here trying to figure out what is causing the error/crash. Can anyone help me out here?
Is there a way to view the log separately from LyX, so that I can see the action log after LyX crashes?
Any other ideas for what to do?

Thanks very much for any and all help,
palme

[scottkosty]

Hi baropalma,

Sounds frustrating! Whenever you post a question about LyX, please include the version number. There have been some bugs fixed related to child/master issues. If you are not using LyX 2.0.7.1 you can try upgrading to it. If you are using it, you can try LyX 2.1 release candidate, which should be released shortly.

[baropalma]

Hi Scott,
Sorry, I forgot to include the version. I'm using 2.0.6 on a Mac. I was hesitant to upgrade to 2.0.7, because I heard about some issues with the Mac version. I guess I should try it first, though.
I'll do that, unless anyone else has any recommendations.

[baropalma]

I just installed 2.0.7.1, but unfortunately I got the same error message and crash:

"Error previewing format: pdf2"

Can anyone tell me how to access the log files, or somehow or other figure out what is making the error/crash?

[scottkosty]

I don't know how to do it on Windows, but on Linux you can use "lyx -dbg" and that will give you a list of options. You can do, e.g. "lyx -dbg files" to get logged events relating to files.

[baropalma]

I managed to take a screenshot of the "View messages" log just before LyX crashes. Is there anything in here that gives a clue to the source of the error?

[scottkosty]

I don't have time to look at it. You can post a bug report on http://www.lyx.org/trac

[baropalma]

I have managed to find the source of the error, by methodically deleting sections of the faulty subdocument in order to weed out the guilty element.

It has to do with an attempted cross-reference, using BibTex, that didn't seem to work and crashed LyX a week earlier (I'm not sure why). The strange part is, however, that I had already removed the reference in question, and replaced it with a text marker in the footnote. Yet even with this plain text marker, the crash kept occurring. Only after I erased the entire footnote (whose contents were simply plain text, no citation) did the error/crash stop happening.

Strange... Not sure if anyone else will ever have this problem, or if its just a freak bug.