exiftool broken in MacPorts 2.10.4; is

[seamusdemora (Seamus)]

I have MacPorts 2.10.4 on my oldie mac Mojave (2016 vintage hardware). I am seeing "oddities" in a couple of places. This report/ticket concerns only the 'exiftool' app, but I will mention the other in case they are related.

RE: 'exiftool'

I get the following message when entering any exiftool command; e.g.:

$ exiftool −all= 'MarilynMonroe73.jpg'
Can't locate Image/ExifTool.pm in @INC (you may need to install the Image::ExifTool module) (@INC contains: /opt/local/libexec/perl5.34/lib /Library/Perl/5.18/darwin-thread-multi-2level /Library/Perl/5.18 /Network/Library/Perl/5.18/darwin-thread-multi-2level /Network/Library/Perl/5.18 /Library/Perl/Updates/5.18.4 /System/Library/Perl/5.18/darwin-thread-multi-2level /System/Library/Perl/5.18 /System/Library/Perl/Extras/5.18/darwin-thread-multi-2level /System/Library/Perl/Extras/5.18 .) at /opt/local/bin/exiftool line 41.
BEGIN failed--compilation aborted at /opt/local/bin/exiftool line 41.

I get the same output even from (for example) command: $ exiftool -ver

These 'exiftool' errors persist even after an 'uninstall' and 'install' of exiftool.

This concludes the ticket on 'exiftool'; the balance covers "possibly related oddities" with MacPorts itself:

Various errors reported today while investigating 'exiftool' issues; e.g.

$ sudo port −d sync
Error: Unrecognized action "port −d"

$ sudo port upgrade −−force exiftool
Error: −−force is not installed
--->  Scanning binaries for linking errors
--->  No broken files found.
--->  No broken ports found.

Other potentially relevant information on MacPorts:

I run 'port -q selfupdate' and 'port -q upgrade outdated' from my root crontab:

05 19 * * *  (echo "----------\n"$(date) && sudo /opt/local/bin/port -q selfupdate) >> /Users/user1/portupdatelog.txt 2>&1
15 19 * * * (sudo /opt/local/bin/port -q upgrade outdated && echo "----------\n") >> /Users/user1/portupdatelog.txt 2>&1

the most recent entry from portupdatelog.txt

----------
Sat Nov 2 19:05:00 CDT 2024
--->  Checking for newer releases of MacPorts
MacPorts base version 2.10.1 installed,
MacPorts base version 2.10.4 available.
--->  MacPorts base is outdated, installing new version 2.10.4
--->  Attempting to fetch MacPorts 2.10.4 source code from https://github.com/macports/macports-base/releases/download/v2.10.4/MacPorts-2.10.4.tar.bz2
--->  Extracting MacPorts 2.10.4
--->  Installing new MacPorts release in /opt/local as root:wheel; permissions 0755
--->  Checking for newer releases of MacPorts
MacPorts base version 2.10.4 installed,
MacPorts base version 2.10.4 available.
--->  MacPorts base is already the latest version
--->  Updating the ports tree

The ports tree has been updated.

46 ports are outdated. Run 'port outdated' for details.
To upgrade your installed ports, you should run
  port upgrade outdated

For reasons unclear/not recalled, the 'cron' jobs stopped logging (and running??) after Nov 25 2023, but re-started on Feb 13 2024. Since then, they have run only *intermittently*!; i.e. *NOT* IAW the schedule in 'cron'.

I have also noticed there is a 'daemon' installed on my system: 'org.macports.rsyncd.plist'. I presume this was installed by you (MacPorts) at some point in time. It is configured to log to '/opt/local/var/log/rsyncd.log'. This daemon seems to be completely broken; the only entries in the log file are 'Failed to parse config file: /opt/local/etc/rsyncd.conf'

On Feb 13 2024 MacPorts was upgraded from 2.8.1 to 2.9.1. The next run was logged on Mar 2 2024 (which was uneventful), and then jumped to Mar 25 2024. The Mar 25 2024 log entry was a large one. It included a couple of entries that had not been seen before:

--->  Scanning binaries for linking errors
Warning: Error parsing file /Applications/MacPorts/Python 3.12/Python Launcher.app/Contents/MacOS/Python Launcher: Error opening or reading file

This Warning persisted until the upgrade from 2.9.1 to 2.9.3; the Warning ceased to appear in the logs after 2.9.3 was installed . My (intermittent) log entries indicate 2.9.3 was installed on April 8 2024. My logs apparently did not record any other upgrades until Nov 2 2024 - as noted above.