PROBLEM

With the latest rollout of adobe / pdf software to the latest linux distributions, there was a rather basic bug introduced causing an infinite number of ‘expr: syntax error” messages being displayed. Fortunately this was a simple script bug frmo the provider that thankfully can be fixed by anyone. The error pops up on many applications using ‘acroread’ binary and spews out a seamingly never ending list of or non stop continous expr: syntax error.

SOLUTION

Here’s how to go about resolving this annoyance:

$ which acroread /usr/bin/acroread
$ vi /usr/bin/acroread +418

FROM

echo $mfile| sed ’s/libgtk-x11-\([0-9]*\).0.so.0.\([0-9]\)00.\([0-9]*\)\|\(.*\)/\1\2\3/g’

Above in red is missing a * at the end of [0-9].

TO

Add * (start) on second [0-9] to:

echo $mfile| sed ’s/libgtk-x11-\([0-9]*\).0.so.0.\([0-9]*\)00.\([0-9]*\)\|\(.*\)/\1\2\3/g’

This permanently fixes the issue in the system.