Topic: Man pages not working

[Alex Schaft]

Hi,

For some reason, I can't get my man pages to work anymore. Anything I type brings up nothing.

What should I check?

Alex

[Urirama]

Try http://www.e-smith.org/bboard/search.php?

[Alex Schaft]

I did. Didn't mention that I was on 4.1.2

Man is still installed, as are the man pages, searches don't bring anything up.

The following is a debug log. Note the -d explicitly pointing to /usr/share/man

[root@quicksrv /root]# man -d /usr/share/man 8 man
Reading config file /etc/man.config
found man directory /usr/local/rav8/man

using /usr/bin/less -isr as pager
fgets: Is a directory
Error reading man page /usr/share/man
No manual entry for /usr/share/man

section: 8

path directory /usr/local/sbin is not in the config file
but there is a man directory nearby
adding /usr/local/man to manpath

path directory /usr/sbin is not in the config file
but there is a man directory nearby
adding /usr/man to manpath

path directory /sbin is not in the config file
and we found no man directory nearby

path directory /usr/local/sbin is not in the config file
but there is a man directory nearby

path directory /usr/local/bin is not in the config file
but there is a man directory nearby

path directory /sbin is not in the config file
and we found no man directory nearby

path directory /bin is not in the config file
and we found no man directory nearby

path directory /usr/sbin is not in the config file
but there is a man directory nearby

path directory /usr/bin is not in the config file
but there is a man directory nearby

path directory /usr/X11R6/bin is not in the config file
but there is a man directory nearby
adding /usr/X11R6/man to manpath

path directory /root/bin is not in the config file
and we found no man directory nearby

adding mandatory man directories

adding /usr/local/rav8/man to manpath
No entry for man in section 8 of the manual

[Rich Lafferty]

I note the -d (enable debugging), but it's not pointing anywhere, because
it doesn't take an argument. Specifically, it will *never* show you a manual
page; even if it finds the page (which it doesn't in your case), it just prints
out the command it would have used to display it.

In your case, you've asked it to turn on debugging, format the manual page
"/usr/share/man", and then give you the manual page for "man" in
section 8 of the manual.

The manual page for "man" is in section 1 of the manual, so man
(correctly) tells you you can't find it in section 8.

Try a less convoluted command:

$ man man

and if that fails,

$ man -d man

For what it's worth, what you think -d did appears to be done by -M,
but it shouldn't be necessary anyhow. (Remember that setting a manpath
with -M or $MANPATH *replaces* the system one, rather than augmenting
it.)

Cheers,

  -Rich

[Alex Schaft]

Hi,

Tried it, and got the following

[root@quicksrv /root]# man -d man
Reading config file /etc/man.config
found man directory /usr/local/rav8/man

using /usr/bin/less -isr as pager

path directory /usr/local/sbin is not in the config file
but there is a man directory nearby
adding /usr/local/man to manpath

path directory /usr/sbin is not in the config file
but there is a man directory nearby
adding /usr/man to manpath

path directory /sbin is not in the config file
and we found no man directory nearby

path directory /usr/local/sbin is not in the config file
but there is a man directory nearby

path directory /usr/local/bin is not in the config file
but there is a man directory nearby

path directory /sbin is not in the config file
and we found no man directory nearby

path directory /bin is not in the config file
and we found no man directory nearby

path directory /usr/sbin is not in the config file
but there is a man directory nearby

path directory /usr/bin is not in the config file
but there is a man directory nearby

path directory /usr/X11R6/bin is not in the config file
but there is a man directory nearby
adding /usr/X11R6/man to manpath

path directory /root/bin is not in the config file
and we found no man directory nearby

adding mandatory man directories

adding /usr/local/rav8/man to manpath
No manual entry for man
[root@quicksrv /root]#

Alex

[Rich Lafferty]

Offhand, I'd say the first thing to try would be to back off the changes
to /etc/man.config. Make sure that things are as installed with
'rpm -V man', and then make one change at a time heading back to the
current man.config until things break.