fmtutil: only try to use TEXMFSYSVAR for mktexfmt

1 files changed, 7 insertions, 3 deletions

diff --git a/Master/tlpkg/TeXLive/TLUtils.pm b/Master/tlpkg/TeXLive/TLUtils.pm
index e39971a7965..4bc22da9fec 100644
--- a/Master/tlpkg/TeXLive/TLUtils.pm
+++ b/Master/tlpkg/TeXLive/TLUtils.pm
@@ -4626,9 +4626,13 @@ sub setup_sys_user_mode {
   } elsif ($optsref->{'user'}) {
     $texmfconfig = $TEXMFCONFIG;
     $texmfvar    = $TEXMFVAR;
-    # for fmtutil we try to use TEXMFSYSVAR if it is writable since
-    # stray formats are some of the biggest problems reported
-    if ($prg eq "fmtutil" || $prg eq "mktexfmt") {
+    # mktexfmt is often run accidentally by a user with missing formats
+    # and the resulting format dumps are put into TEXMFVAR, which is
+    # one of the most common source of problems.
+    # Only for mktexfmt (but not for fmtutil, which would need to be called
+    # explicitely with fmtutil -user) we check whether TEXMFSYSVAR is writable
+    # and if yes, create formats there.
+    if ($prg eq "mktexfmt") {
       my $switchit = 0;
       if (-d "$TEXMFSYSVAR/web2c") {
         $switchit = 1 if (-w "$TEXMFSYSVAR/web2c");