Kile and lyxpipe.in|.out prevents LyX from running. What's this about?

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1

I recently started using kile for LaTeX editing. I have used LyX for many years. I noticed LyX wouldn’t start unless I deleted the symlinks ~/.lyxpipe.* and ~/.lyx/lyxpipe.*

I figured those were due to LyX not shutting down cleanly. But today I notice that their timestamps didn’t correspond to my running LyX. When I looked at the details I saw that these link to /tmp/kile-UUhysZ/.lyx/lyxpipe.*. So kile is the culprit.

I never knowingly configured either one of these applications to share pipes. I don’t want to start reconfiguring things without understanding the potential consequences. Does anybody know why kile is creating these pipes?

2

I can confirm that Kile is creating those pipes having just started Kile when I had LyX open and checked /tmp. I can also confirm that the lyxpipe files are temporary files. So it would appear that they only exist when LyX is open and so Kile can only create the symlinks if both programs are open at the same time.
So it appears that they are not closing when LyX is closed and when LyX reopens, it cannot create them afresh because the symlinks block the creation of the new files.
You may need to do some more research to check that what appears to happen in my case also happens in yours.

1 Like
3

Here’s what I get:

  • Neither LyX nor Kile running:
    • neither ~/.lyxpipe.in|.out nor ~/.lyx/lyxpipe.in|.out present
  • LyX not running, start Kile:
    • both ~/.lyxpipe.in|.out and ~/.lyx/lyxpipe.in|.out simlinks appear;
    • LyX won’t start.
  • Lyx not running, stop Kile:
    • both ~/.lyxpipe.in|.out and ~/.lyx/lyxpipe.in|.out disappear;
    • LyX will start.
  • Start LyX, Kile not running:
    • ~/.lyx/lyxpipe.in|.out pipe appears;
    • no ~/.lyxpipe.in|.out;
  • LyX running, start Kile;
    • Kile will start;
    • both ~/.lyxpipe.in|.out and ~/.lyx/lyxpipe.in|.out simlinks appear;
    • ~/.lyx/lyxpipe.in|.out pipe replaced;
  • LyX and Kile running, stop LyX;
    • ~/.lyx/lyxpipe.in|.out simlink removed;
    • ~/.lyxpipe.in|.out simlink remains.

Both apps have their advantages. I have good reasons for running the concurrently.

4

Sorry for the delay in getting back on this one. I can confirm that my experience is the same as yours. In effect the only problem arises when starting Kile before LyX. As I always start LyX first, I have never encountered the problem (until I manufactured it to compare with your experience). Having used both of them for around 20 years and never encountered the problem, it looks like a bug which so few eyes have seen that no-one has thought of reporting it - and it may be difficult to track down as LyX and Kile are developed by completely different teams of developers.
I suggest you carry on running them concurrently but make sure that you open LyX first.