pdfTeX in texlive missing pdftex.fmt

[Mojca Miklavec]

On Fri, Aug 29, 2014 at 3:40 AM, Jim Graham wrote:
> On Thu, Aug 28, 2014 at 06:35:33PM -0700, Dan Ports wrote:
>>
>> This is strange. That file -- which, for the record, is found in
>> /opt/local/var/db/texmf/web2c/pdftex/pdftex.fmt -- is compiled during
>> the activation of texlive-basic. I haven't heard any other reports of
>> problems building that file. If you happen to have a logfile for the
>> installation of texlive-basic, I'd be interested to see it.
>
> I've already uninstalled the MacPorts version of TeXlive and installed
> the one from CTAN.  Sorry, no logs, no anything left of it.
>
> Now I just need to reset Tex's environment variables, and I'm back
> up and running.

What do you mean with "reset TeX's environmental variables"? You don't
need *anything at all* other than having binaries in PATH unless you
are doing something really unusual (and you know what you are doing /
what you want to achieve). If you were "messing with environmental
variables", this might be one of the most likely reasons why TeX
wasn't able to find the fmt file. You should add configuration to your
own copy of texmf.cnf instead. Can you please list those environmental
variables (before you remove them)?

Mojca