man error

[Dave La Mar]

Occasionally I get the following error when trying to do a man for a topic:
stdin: not in compressed format

Would someone explain to this rookie what this means and how to avoid it?
Thanks.

[Rita C Workman]

Take a look at this thread:

http://forums.itrc.hp.com/cm/QuestionAnswer/1,1150,0x6f09a24d9abcd4118fef0090279cd0f9,00.html

Hope it helps,
Rita

[Chris Calabrese]

Actually this message means pretty much exactly what it says. The man command was expecting something that was comressed, but it wasn't.

To understand what causes this, however, involves a little more background...

The man command understands files in various formats - pre-formatted (cat-format), pre-formatted and compressed (cat.Z), un-formatted (man-format), and unformatted and compressed (man.Z).

However, instead of giving each file a different extension or something, it looks in different directories for the different file formats.

So, for example, if you placed an uncompressed file in /usr/man/man1.Z/fubar.1, and then did a 'man fubar', you'd get the error you described. Similarly for /usr/man/cat1.Z/fubar.1, /usr/man/man2.Z/fubar.2, /man2.Z/fubar.2, etc.

[Kamlesh Shete]

Hi Dave,

A quick way to fix this is to runf " catman -w" commanc as root. This could take a while, and this creates formatted versions of the online manuals, examining all manual entries at the same time. Before running catman, remove any existing cat* directories.

Regards,
KS

[James R. Ferguson]

Hi:

The Knowledge Base (#A3948869) suggests that you delete the troublesome man pages from its 'catX.Z' directory. For example, if you get "not in a compressed format" for:

# man uname

then:

# rm /usr/share/man/cat1.Z/uname.1
# man uname

You can find the proper file to remove by issuing:

# whereis -m

...JRF...

[John Poff]

Dave,

I read your message and started playing with 'man' on one of our machines, and I found a man page (man 2 rename) that has the same problem. I used James' method and removed the offending file from the /usr/share/man/cat2.Z directory, did 'man rename', and it worked.

No wonder that guy has so many points! :)

JP

[Victor_5 · Accepted solution]

Here is another way according to Knowledge Base(#A1860658):

The problem can be resolved by removing all the cat. files from the /usr/man/ directory. The following steps have been used to resolve the problem:

1. logon as root
2. cd /usr/man
3. rm -r cat*

[Dave La Mar]

OK people... you are talking to a real dummy here.
1. I edited the MANPATH as suggested ... problem remains.
/usr/share/man/%:/usr/share/man:/opt/gzip/man/%L:/opt/gzip/man:/usr/contrib/man/%L:/usr/contrib/man:
2. man mailx was one. I removed mailx frpm the directory suggested .... problem remains.
3. I decided to look at the knowledge base entries suggested but am not familiar with looking these up as a browse of the Technical Knowledge Base did not get a hit on A1860658 or the other suggested.

What's this new guy missing?
Thanks for any and all input.
dl

[James R. Ferguson]

Hi:

To find documents in the TKB (Technical Knowledge Base) you should be logged-in. Go to Maintenance and Support -> Search Technical Knowledge Base -> [Choose search by keyword OR search by DocID from the dropdown and enter a keyword(s) or a document ID].

...JRF...

[Dave La Mar]

Thank all of you for your input. I am new to HP-UX which is also new to our company. As I struggle to become proficient as an admin I look forward to the input this forum provides.
For the problem in question I folloed A1860658 as suggested. I was extremely hesitant at the recursive rm but I now get a message "No manual entry for mailx" instead of the compress error. Do you think the erro originally ocurred because there was no entry?
Thanks again.
dl