man pages blank

Cam1223 · 2008-04-03 09:00:52

So Ive been using ArchLinux for a while and its been great. but ever since i installed it i havent been able to read the any man pages. yes i know and iv already searched the forums for this and know about "unset MANPATH" im positive iv done everything right. but just in case i'll post some config files. the problem isnt that man dosent find the page, the problem is that it shows a blank page that jus says END.
heres some config files.

/etc/profiles

# 
# /etc/profile
#
# This file is intended to be used for ALL common
# Bourne-compatible shells. Shell specifics should be
# handled in /etc/profile.$SHELL where $SHELL is the name
# of the binary being run (discounting symlinks)
#
# Sections taken from SuSe's /etc/profile
# Note the explicit use of 'test' to cover all bases
#  and potentially incompatible shells

#Determine our shell without using $SHELL, which may lie
shell="sh"
if test -f /proc/mounts; then
   case $(/bin/ls -l /proc/$$/exe) in
        *bash) shell=bash ;;
        *dash) shell=dash ;;
        *ash)  shell=ash ;;
        *ksh)  shell=ksh ;;
        *zsh)  shell=zsh ;;
    esac
fi

# Load shell specific profile settings
test -f "/etc/profile.$shell" &&  . "/etc/profile.$shell"

#Set our umask
umask 022

# Set our default path
PATH="/bin:/usr/bin:/sbin:/usr/sbin"
export PATH

# Some readline stuff that is fairly common
HISTSIZE=1000
HISTCONTROL="erasedups"

INPUTRC="/etc/inputrc"
LESS="-R"
LC_COLLATE="C"

export HISTSIZE HISTCONTROL INPUTRC LESS LC_COLLATE

# Load profiles from /etc/profile.d
if test -d /etc/profile.d/; then
    for profile in /etc/profile.d/*.sh; do
        test -x $profile && . $profile
    done
    unset profile
fi

# Termcap is outdated, old, and crusty, kill it.
unset TERMCAP

# Man is much better than us at figuring this out
unset MANPATH

/etc/man.conf

#
# Generated automatically from man.conf.in by the
# configure script.
#
# man.conf from man-1.6f
#
# For more information about this file, see the man pages man(1)
# and man.conf(5).
#
# This file is read by man to configure the default manpath (also used
# when MANPATH contains an empty substring), to find out where the cat
# pages corresponding to given man pages should be stored,
# and to map each PATH element to a manpath element.
# It may also record the pathname of the man binary. [This is unused.]
# The format is:
#
# MANBIN        pathname
# MANPATH        manpath_element    [corresponding_catdir]
# MANPATH_MAP        path_element    manpath_element
#
# If no catdir is given, it is assumed to be equal to the mandir
# (so that this dir has both man1 etc. and cat1 etc. subdirs).
# This is the traditional Unix setup.
# Certain versions of the FSSTND recommend putting formatted versions
# of /usr/.../man/manx/page.x into /var/catman/.../catx/page.x.
# The keyword FSSTND will cause this behaviour.
# Certain versions of the FHS recommend putting formatted versions of
# /usr/.../share/man/[locale/]manx/page.x into
# /var/cache/man/.../[locale/]catx/page.x.
# The keyword FHS will cause this behaviour (and overrides FSSTND).
# Explicitly given catdirs override.
#
# FSSTND
FHS
#
# This file is also read by man in order to find how to call nroff, less, etc.,
# and to determine the correspondence between extensions and decompressors.
#
# MANBIN        /usr/local/bin/man
#
# Every automatically generated MANPATH includes these fields
#
MANPATH    /usr/man
MANPATH    /usr/share/man
MANPATH    /usr/local/man
MANPATH    /usr/local/share/man
MANPATH    /usr/X11R6/man
#
# Uncomment if you want to include one of these by default
#
# MANPATH    /opt/*/man
# MANPATH    /usr/lib/*/man
# MANPATH    /usr/share/*/man
# MANPATH    /usr/kerberos/man
#
# Set up PATH to MANPATH mapping
#
# If people ask for "man foo" and have "/dir/bin/foo" in their PATH
# and the docs are found in "/dir/man", then no mapping is required.
#
# The below mappings are superfluous when the right hand side is
# in the mandatory manpath already, but will keep man from statting
# lots of other nearby files and directories.
#
MANPATH_MAP    /bin            /usr/share/man
MANPATH_MAP    /sbin            /usr/share/man
MANPATH_MAP    /usr/bin        /usr/share/man
MANPATH_MAP    /usr/sbin        /usr/share/man
MANPATH_MAP    /usr/local/bin        /usr/local/share/man
MANPATH_MAP    /usr/local/sbin        /usr/local/share/man
MANPATH_MAP    /usr/X11R6/bin        /usr/X11R6/man
MANPATH_MAP    /usr/bin/X11        /usr/X11R6/man
MANPATH_MAP    /usr/bin/mh        /usr/share/man
#
# NOAUTOPATH keeps man from automatically adding directories that look like
# manual page directories to the path.
#
#NOAUTOPATH
#
# NOCACHE keeps man from creating cache pages ("cat pages")
# (generally one enables/disable cat page creation by creating/deleting
# the directory they would live in - man never does mkdir)
# 
#NOCACHE
#
# Useful paths - note that COL should not be defined when
# NROFF is defined as "groff -Tascii" or "groff ";
# not only is it superfluous, but it actually damages the output.
# For use with utf-8, NROFF should be "nroff -mandoc" without -T option.
# (Maybe - but today I need  to prevent double conversion to utf8.)
#
# If you have a new troff (version 1.18.1?) and its colored output
# causes problems, add the -c option to TROFF, NROFF, JNROFF.
#
TROFF        /usr/bin/groff -Tps -mandoc -c
NROFF        /usr/bin/nroff  -mandoc -c
JNROFF        /usr/bin/groff -Tnippon -mandocj -c
EQN        /usr/bin/geqn -Tps
NEQN        /usr/bin/geqn 
JNEQN        /usr/bin/geqn -Tnippon
TBL        /usr/bin/gtbl
# COL        /usr/bin/col
REFER        /usr/bin/refer
PIC        /usr/bin/pic
VGRIND        
GRAP        
PAGER        /bin/less -is
BROWSER        /bin/less -is
HTMLPAGER    /bin/cat
CAT        /bin/cat
#
# The command "man -a xyzzy" will show all man pages for xyzzy.
# When CMP is defined man will try to avoid showing the same
# text twice. (But compressed pages compare unequal.)
#
CMP        /usr/bin/cmp -s
#
# Compress cat pages
#
COMPRESS    /bin/bzip2
COMPRESS_EXT    .bz2
#
# Default manual sections (and order) to search if -S is not specified
# and the MANSECT environment variable is not set.
#
MANSECT        1:1p:8:2:3:3p:4:5:6:7:9:0p:tcl:n:l:p:o
#
# Default options to use when man is invoked without options
# This is mainly for the benefit of those that think -a should be the default
# Note that some systems have /usr/man/allman, causing pages to be shown twice.
#
#MANDEFOPTIONS    -a
#
# Decompress with given decompressor when input file has given extension
# The command given must act as a filter.
#
.gz        /bin/gunzip -c
.bz2        /bin/bzip2 -c -d
.lzma        
.z        
.Z        /bin/zcat
.F        
.Y

~.bashrc

source /etc/profile

hope u guys can help me it really sux not to be able to read man pages..

gejr · 2008-04-03 09:03:49

I have never encountered this, and I have no idea. But maybe you need to run pacman -S man-pages ?

kezar · 2008-04-03 09:26:35

Have you updated your config files ? (no .pacnew)
Man pages have moved a few weeks ago.

Cam1223 · 2008-04-03 19:19:30

all config files are up to date man-pages is already installed.
i know its strange all iv been able to get is unset MANPATH and that is clearly not the problem.
heres a shot of what happens when i type in any man page

dolby · 2008-04-03 19:36:35

hit page up

Cam1223 · 2008-04-03 19:46:39

hitting page up makes it do this, if i hit the arrow keys it also does this

its been like this since i installed arch,

Sjoden · 2008-04-03 21:10:22

Try quitting X and logging into the console, and reading the man pages.

Cam1223 · 2008-04-05 05:59:01

nope jus logged in to a pure console with no X and still same thing. jus says END. does anyone know whats going on here?!?

cerbie · 2008-04-05 19:28:02

# Man is much better than us at figuring this out
unset MANPATH

Have you tried commenting that out? I commented it, and *poof* got my man pages.

Cam1223 · 2008-04-07 02:39:18

i commented it out and opend up a new X-less console and it shows the same behavior nothing changed.

it appears im the only one expiriencing this problem, how strange...

maybe we could move this out of newbie help...

kishd · 2008-04-07 04:28:42

I had a similar problem and found that somehow I had un-installed man-db. Perhaps you could re-install man-db.

dolby · 2008-04-07 12:13:06

man-db is not the official tool to read manpages

Last edited by dolby (2008-04-07 12:13:19)

Cam1223 · 2008-04-08 09:28:06

ok i tried out man-db and got something intresting, maybe u guys know what this means. it looks like its the same problem with both of them and i still see no man pages with either man or man-db

this is the output i get when i type man ls

man: tbl: Segmentation fault
 Manual page ls(1) line ?/? (END)

kishd · 2008-04-08 09:51:05

Try re-installing groff GNU troff text-formatting system

Cam1223 · 2008-04-08 19:22:54

kishd wrote:

Try re-installing groff GNU troff text-formatting system

IT WORKS!!
i did
pacman -S groff
and it reinstalled it and now my man pages show up finally!
thank you!

one thing though, if it was already installed why did i have to reinstall it for?

kishd · 2008-04-09 07:16:32

The error message "tbl: Segmentation fault" indicated that tbl was not functioning properly and might have become corrupted. /usr/bin/tbl belongs to the groff package. That is why I suggested re-installing the package.

To find which package a file belongs to use pacman -Qo /path-to-file

Arch Linux

#1 2008-04-03 09:00:52

man pages blank

#2 2008-04-03 09:03:49

Re: man pages blank

#3 2008-04-03 09:26:35

Re: man pages blank

#4 2008-04-03 19:19:30

Re: man pages blank

#5 2008-04-03 19:36:35

Re: man pages blank

#6 2008-04-03 19:46:39

Re: man pages blank

#7 2008-04-03 21:10:22

Re: man pages blank

#8 2008-04-05 05:59:01

Re: man pages blank

#9 2008-04-05 19:28:02

Re: man pages blank

#10 2008-04-07 02:39:18

Re: man pages blank

#11 2008-04-07 04:28:42

Re: man pages blank

#12 2008-04-07 12:13:06

Re: man pages blank

#13 2008-04-08 09:28:06

Re: man pages blank

#14 2008-04-08 09:51:05

Re: man pages blank

#15 2008-04-08 19:22:54

Re: man pages blank

#16 2008-04-09 07:16:32

Re: man pages blank

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