longtable 4.16 : dimension too large when inside vbox ; works in 4.13

[ysalmon]

Brief outline of the bug

longtable causes a Dimension too large error when it is typeset in a vbox

Minimal example showing the bug

(firsthead and head are identical due to example minimisation ; same for foot and lastfoot)

\RequirePackage{latexbug}
\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{longtable}
\begin{document}
\vbox{\begin{longtable}{|l|l|l|l|l|l|}
\hline
\textbf{classe}&\textbf{Copies}&\textbf{Note min}&\textbf{Note max}&\textbf{Moyenne}&\textbf{ecart-type}\\\hline\endfirsthead
\hline
\textbf{classe}&\textbf{Copies}&\textbf{Note min}&\textbf{Note max}&\textbf{Moyenne}&\textbf{ecart-type}\\\hline\endhead
\hline\endfoot
\endlastfoot
MPSI1&16&2.40&16.03&7.75&3.78\\\hline
\end{longtable}}

\end{document}

Removing the vbox around makes it compile. No problem with the 4.13 version of longtable.

Log file (required) and possibly PDF file

fiches_juin.log

[davidcarlisle]

Thanks for the file. the newer code checks the amount on the page in a better way to avoid over-runs when there are floats, or shrinkable glue on the page, but \pagegoal is \maxdimen inside the box as the box hasn't yet been added to the page and the calculation overflows (and would do the wrong thing anyway)

I need to detect this case and avoid the error, but will need to think where to do that.

\vbox{\dimendef\pagegoal=0 \pagegoal=0pt

will get your document working (but that is not a fix, just a quick workaround)

[ysalmon]

Thank you so much for this quick workaround !

[stale[bot]]

This issue has been automatically marked as stale because it has not had recent activity.

[stale[bot]]

This issue has been automatically marked as stale because it has not had recent activity.

[josephwright]

Is this one that needs v5?

[github-actions[bot]]

This issue has been automatically marked as stale because it has not had recent activity.

[rdicosmo]

Motivation for reopening

I would kindly like to reopen this issue, as it is still unsolved, and it turns out that now the bug prevents using longtable inside a beamer block.

Minimal example reused in beamer

\documentclass{beamer}
\usepackage{longtable}
\begin{document}
\begin{frame}
    \begin{longtable}{|l|l|l|l|l|l|}
      \hline
      \textbf{classe}&\textbf{Copies}&\textbf{Note min}&\textbf{Note max}&\textbf{Moyenne}&\textbf{ecart-type}\\\hline\endfirsthead
      \hline
      \textbf{classe}&\textbf{Copies}&\textbf{Note min}&\textbf{Note max}&\textbf{Moyenne}&\textbf{ecart-type}\\\hline\endhead
      \hline\endfoot
      \endlastfoot
      MPSI1&16&2.40&16.03&7.75&3.78\\\hline
    \end{longtable}
\end{frame}
\end{document}

Log file

bugreport.log

[josephwright]

@rdicosmo A longtable simply doesn't make sense in a beamer slide

[rdicosmo]

I agree :-) But this worked until 4.13, and it was practical sometimes to paste into slides material from an article. Getting this strange new error when upgrading LaTeX is puzzling and makes one loose quite a bit of time to chase down what's happening :-(