Trouble Shooting

Known problems and their solutions

I press the right key of a menu item but no response

L2h menu keys are usually case sensitive, so check the "Caps Lock" key. (They are case sensitive if there is at least one uppercase menu key.)

If you just resized a linux terminal window, the next key is kept in limbo. Linux does that to punish you for criticizing its inability of opening terminals of the correct 80x24 size. The best thing to do is press the - key after a resize. And apologize very sincerely too.

Operating system error, why??

The error message "Operating system error" is a catch-all phrase for all problems that the author of l2h thought should not occur. Very likely, the problem is really with the author's lousy coding instead of the operating system. Try the suggestions of section Problems with l2h itself.

The log reader ignores an error or warning

A careful user could go into file readlog.ind (inside the data subfolder of the system-files subfolder of l2h) and add it. And maybe also add a corresponding section to errors.html and warnings.html, as appropriate. Follow the existing format.

Or better, e-mail me the index.log file, with a note about the problem. Then I can add it to errors.html or warnings.html, and the log file reader. If everybody does that, then these files will be much more comprehensive, and everybody benefits. (Errors.html and warnings.html are available on the web for everybody, not just l2h users. And the l2h log reader can be used without l2h too.)

Web pages are created but have problems

If you have error messages while running latex with the "l" key, these must be fixed first. See the corresponding section. Otherwise see l2hfu. Note that most of the described problems have been fixed inside l2h. Especially when you run latex2html inside the l2h menu, or using makewebpages.bat. If you cannot figure it out, contact me.

Problems using jpeg images in the web pages

1. If a web page name is too long, in it any created jpegs will not be substituted for the gifs. This is no problem for the normal l2h 'nodeNNNN' type names. However, if you use \secname or \webpagename, make sure the chosen label in it is brief. (No more than 10 characters, or no more than 7 if you use a frames theme. Versions of l2h above 1.1 are scheduled to add another 15 characters to these limits. This is done in system-files/jpegs/dojpegs.f by changing 15 to 30 in parameter fildim and format 1 and recompiling.)
2. For other problems, try remaking the web pages from scratch with the jpeg quality set. And be sure to refresh/reload your browser.

Problems converting jpeg (.jpg) images

This deals with converting jpeg (.jpg) files using the converters in the "convert" subfolder of l2h. For jpeg images in web pages, see the previous item. Version 1 of l2h has very old jpeg converters. They will not recognize jpeg files with newer features. Version 1.1 of l2h, still to be posted as I write this, will have more recent, 2013, IJG jpeg version 9 converters. Jpeg files may also become damaged. The most common damage is that the final part of the jpeg is corrupt or missing. In that case, the 1.1 converters will salvage the first part. You may also want to consider trying to process the problem image with another program like Photoshop, the gimp, MS Paint, etc. Some useful links on fixing corrupt jpeg images by other means:

• http://www.techradar.com/us/news/software/recover-lost-photos-how-to-repair-corrupt-images-1117764 http://www.softorbits.com/picdoctor 64% $100.
• http://www.stellarinfo.com/jpeg-repair.php 62% $39.
• http://www.officerecovery.com/pixrecovery 52% $49.
• http://www.hketech.com 39% $50.
• https://online.officerecovery.com/restore-corrupted-photo-file-online/ 34% free.

Problems making gifs transparent

Xubuntu desktop files are not compatible with Ubuntu ones. What a surprise! On Xubuntu, you will need to go into the make_..._transparent.desktop files and add a backslash, \, in front of the # character. Note that this will disable the "call" of these files from a terminal as described in nonGUI.html.

Pstoimg does not work in multi-file mode?

It does not if there are spaces in the paths. And never did. At least now it works in single-file mode for such paths.

Dealing with problems with l2h itself

This section is for if you have trouble with l2h itself, or its installation, instead of with LaTeX (problems with making index.pdf), or with LaTeX2HTML (making web pages).

Before reading the rest of this section, first load the latest version of this document from here or here and so check the list of already known problems. After that, scroll down until you are back in the latest version of this section.

If the above did not work, here are some ideas:

1. Look in the latest version of this web page. Links to the latest version are at the top.
2. Check disk space on the disk you are using. (Right-click it and select properties.) Also, if it has been acting strangely lately, it may be at the end of its life.
3. Try doing the same thing as an Administrator (Windows) or root (linux). If that fixes it, you have an access problem. Re-install l2h as yourself, not as a privileged user. (Sometimes privileged users unwittingly change ownership of other people's files to themselves. I have seen that problem many times myself. They may also copy files from one place to another without preseving the file permissions. Executable files change into nonexecutable ones.)
4. Rerun install_l2h. This does a considerable number of sanity checks on your l2h installation.
5. If you have programming experience, the problem area in a script can normally be located by having the script lines being printed out while they are being executed. In Windows, change the "@echo off" first line into "@echo on". In linux, remove the # in front of the "; set echo verbose" in the second line. Now rerun whatever produces the problem. The l2h_menu script is called "menu.bat" and is in the "bin" subfolder of "l2h".
6. Contact Leon van Dommelen. Of course, contacting me is not much good unless you can tell me what happens. Pay careful attention to the screen and write it down. I may ask you to do some of the above if I cannot locate the problem.

Problems running LaTeX initially.

The how_to_get_started.html instructions tell you to try processing one of the unmodified examples 1 through 4 first. Use this section if while doing that, the "l" key produces errors or major warnings.

Before reading the rest of this section, first load the latest version of this document from here or here and so check the list of already known problems. After that, scroll down until you are back in the latest version of this section.

If the above did not work, here are some ideas:

1. If you get a message that a package is missing, like this, latex will abort and you will not get a processed document. The solution is to get the package. If you use MiKTeX on Windows, it should do this for you automatically, but it may take its time. (If you use the full TeX Live on Windows, I do not see how this problem could happen in the first place.) On linux, see whether your package manager can install the package. Or try to find the missing package file on the web and put it inside folder "texinputs" inside the "l2h" folder.
2. Your LaTeX installation may simply be too old. For example, a Sun SPARC station owned by my employer has a very old LaTeX version without UTF-8. And it would not accept the utf8.def file I put in texinputs either. I had to put a % before the \usepackage[utf8]{inputenc} line to get latex to work. And put more recent versions of natbib.sty and hypcap.sty into texinputs. If that too does not work, your LaTeX must be a real museum piece. Time to upgrade.
3. If your LaTeX installation is very new, maybe a problem has developed in that version. (As I write this, the May 2013 LaTeX versions and earlier are OK.) E-mail me the log file.
4. It is conceivable that packages conflict. Contact me. I will want to see your copy of index.log.
5. If a pdf document is produced, inspect it for problems. Some warnings that seem serious are actually minor, and the l2h log reader might not know that. E-mail me a copy of the log file so that I can add the warning to the data base.

Problems with making the pdf initially.

The how_to_get_started.html instructions tell you to try processing one of the unmodified examples 1 through 4 first. This section assumes that while doing that, the chosen unmodified document processed without problems using the "l" key, (if not, see that section). However, no pdf was produced.

Before reading the rest of this section, first load the latest version of this document from here or here and so check the list of already known problems. After that, scroll down until you are back in the latest version of this section.

If the above did not work, here are some ideas:

1. Are you sure that you are opening the correct file index.pdf? In the folder view menu, select "List" or "Details" to see what each file called "index" really is. Is the pdf maybe already open in another work space?
2. If you are using example 3 or 4, I do not see how this can happen. The reason is that there the pdf is made while running latex with the "l" key. So there must be an error in the log file. In the l2h menu, scroll the full log file with the Space key and let me know what you find. Look at the corresponding section.
3. If you use example 1 or 2, the problem is presumably with your ghostscript version. Now ghostscript should be OK unless it is 10 years old or so. If so, upgrade. But a very recent ghostscript (later than at least May 2013) may have developed a problem. Try whether you can create a ps version with the "s" key that is OK. If you can, the problem is definitely with ghostscript.

Problems with making the web pages initially.

The how_to_get_started.html instructions tell you to try processing one of the unmodified examples 1 through 4 first. This section assumes that the chosen unmodified document processed without problems using the "l" key, (if not, see the corresponding section). However, no web-pages were produced.

Before reading the rest of this section, first load the latest version of this document from here or here and so check the list of already known problems. After that, scroll down until you are back in the latest version of this section.

If the above did not work, here are some ideas:

1. Are you sure that you are opening the correct file index.html in the web-pages subfolder of your document folder? In the folder view menu, select "List" or "Details" to see what each file called "index" really is. Are the web pages maybe already open in another work space?
2. It may be a problem with your version of perl. If it is more than a dozen years old, upgrade it. Or if you have a very recent version of perl, at least more recent than May 2013, it may have developed a problem. Contact me with details what happens.
3. If you use example 3 or 4, try example 1 or 2 instead. Examples 3 and 4 use pdftex for the pdf instead of latex. If pdftex has no problem, but latex does, it would make a difference.

Problems with examples 5 and 6 initially.

The how_to_get_started.html instructions tell you to try processing one of the unmodified examples 1 through 4 first. This section assumes that you could do everything OK there. However, when you switched to the unmodified example 5 or 6, a problem developed.

Before reading the rest of this section, first load the latest version of this document from here or here and so check the list of already known problems. After that, scroll down until you are back in the latest version of this section.

If the above did not work, here are some ideas:

1. You need XeLaTeX for these examples. However, if you do not have XeLaTeX, you would have been told so when you ran l2h_install. So the problem could be that your version of XeLaTeX is too old or too new. At the time of writing, June 2013, XeLaTeX is still new and changing quickly. So if XeLaTeX seems to be the problem and your XeLaTeX is years old, try upgrading it. Conversely, if your XeLaTeX is very new, at least later than May 2013, contact me.
2. If you can process the document OK into a pdf, but you cannot make correct web pages, one of two other programs is probably to blame; pdftk or pdftops. If that seems to be the problem, contact me. Tell me the versions that you have.

Problems after the initial tests were successful.

The how_to_get_started.html instructions tell you to try processing one of the unmodified examples 1 through 4 first. This section assumes that you could do everything OK there. You could make the pdf and web pages with no problems. And, if appropriate, you could process one of the unmodified examples 5 or 6 too. However, you got into trouble with a modified document.

Before reading the rest of this section, first load the latest version of this document from here or here and so check the list of already known problems. After that, scroll down until you are back in the latest version of this section.

If the above did not work, here are some ideas:

The first thing to decide is where you should go for help. If the problem is a LaTeX one, you should use one of the resources mentioned in intro_to_latex. One problem with e-mailing the l2h author about LaTeX errors is that he knows relatively little about TeX and LaTeX. I usually google my problems, or try things until it works. Nothing you cannot do yourself. If you get error messages or serious warnings while processing your document with the "l" key, the problem is almost surely a LaTeX one. (There are exceptions, like when html is specifically involved in some way.)

If processing your document with the "l" key does not produce problems, but something else does, it is more likely to be a l2h problem. See the section on that.