Re: Recent releases of ConTeXt LMTX crash at \starttext when expl3 is loaded

On 7/27/2026 7:08 PM, [email protected] wrote:
> Assume the following text file `test.tex`:
> 
> ```
> \def\ExplFileDate{2026-06-18}
> \starttext
> foo
> \stoptext
> ```
> 
> Using a recent version of ConTeXt (2026.07.06), compiling this file with the command `context --luatex test.tex` works OK and produces the expected PDF output. Compiling this file with the command `context test.tex` produces the warnings "latex expl stuff loaded, beware of side effects", "latex backend code loaded, this can badly interfere", and "quitting run, use --fragile" in the log and the resulting PDF is incomplete (only 21 bytes). Using the command `context --fragile test.tex` only silences the last two warnings but still produces an incomplete PDF; this seems to be a bug, since I assume that the purpose of the flag `--fragile` is precisely to allow the compilation even if expl3 use is suspected.

I'll check it. There will be some updates anyway, preluding the half 
year release.

Hans

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                                           Hans Hagen | PRAGMA ADE
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