[Bug 1778684] [NEW] man: command exited with status 4

[Deepak]

Public bug reported:

Runnung command below and corresponding output:
$man man
shows blank page with status line as 
 Manual page man(1) line ?/? (END) (press h for help or q to quit)

After quitting it shows below output:
man: command exited with status 4: (cd /usr/share/man && /usr/lib/man-db/zsoelim) | (cd /usr/share/man && /usr/lib/man-db/manconv -f UTF-8:ISO-8859-1 -t UTF-8//IGNORE) | (cd /usr/share/man && preconv -e UTF-8) | (cd /usr/share/man && tbl) | (cd /usr/share/man && nroff -mandoc -rLL=164n -rLT=164n -Tutf8)

The below command returns
man man > manerror.txt
man: man: can't execute tbl: Permission denied
can't execute preconv: Permission denied
man: can't execute col: Permission denied
groff: couldn't exec troff: Permission denied
man: command exited with status 4: (cd /usr/share/man && /usr/lib/man-db/zsoelim) | (cd /usr/share/man && /usr/lib/man-db/manconv -f UTF-8:ISO-8859-1 -t UTF-8//IGNORE) | (cd /usr/share/man && preconv -e UTF-8) | (cd /usr/share/man && tbl) | (cd /usr/share/man && nroff -mandoc -rLL=164n -rLT=164n -Tutf8)

The Installed man-db details on my Ubuntu Gnome Desktop 18.04:
Package: man-db                          
Version: 2.8.3-2
State: installed
Automatically installed: no
Multi-Arch: foreign
Priority: standard
Section: doc
Maintainer: Colin Watson <cjwatson at debian.org>
Architecture: amd64
Uncompressed Size: 2,486 k
Depends: bsdmainutils, debconf (>= 1.2.0) | debconf-2.0, groff-base (>= 1.18.1.1-15), libc6 (>= 2.17), libgdbm5 (>= 1.12), libpipeline1 (>= 1.5.0), libseccomp2 (>=
         2.1.0), zlib1g (>= 1:1.1.4)
PreDepends: dpkg (>= 1.16.1~)
Suggests: apparmor, groff, less, www-browser
Conflicts: man, suidmanager (< 0.50), man-db:i386
Breaks: manpages-tr (< 1.0.5.1-3), manpages-zh (< 1.5.2-1.1)
Replaces: man, manpages-de (< 0.5-4), manpages-tr (< 1.0.5.1-3), manpages-zh (< 1.5.2-1.1), nlsutils
Provides: man, man-browser, man-browser:i386, man-db:i386 (= 2.8.3-2)
Provided by: man-db:i386 (2.8.3-2)

** Affects: man-db (Ubuntu)
     Importance: Undecided
         Status: New

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https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1778684

Title:
  man: command exited with status 4

Status in man-db package in Ubuntu:
  New

Bug description:
  Runnung command below and corresponding output:
  $man man
  shows blank page with status line as 
   Manual page man(1) line ?/? (END) (press h for help or q to quit)

  After quitting it shows below output:
  man: command exited with status 4: (cd /usr/share/man && /usr/lib/man-db/zsoelim) | (cd /usr/share/man && /usr/lib/man-db/manconv -f UTF-8:ISO-8859-1 -t UTF-8//IGNORE) | (cd /usr/share/man && preconv -e UTF-8) | (cd /usr/share/man && tbl) | (cd /usr/share/man && nroff -mandoc -rLL=164n -rLT=164n -Tutf8)

  The below command returns
  man man > manerror.txt
  man: man: can't execute tbl: Permission denied
  can't execute preconv: Permission denied
  man: can't execute col: Permission denied
  groff: couldn't exec troff: Permission denied
  man: command exited with status 4: (cd /usr/share/man && /usr/lib/man-db/zsoelim) | (cd /usr/share/man && /usr/lib/man-db/manconv -f UTF-8:ISO-8859-1 -t UTF-8//IGNORE) | (cd /usr/share/man && preconv -e UTF-8) | (cd /usr/share/man && tbl) | (cd /usr/share/man && nroff -mandoc -rLL=164n -rLT=164n -Tutf8)

  The Installed man-db details on my Ubuntu Gnome Desktop 18.04:
  Package: man-db                          
  Version: 2.8.3-2
  State: installed
  Automatically installed: no
  Multi-Arch: foreign
  Priority: standard
  Section: doc
  Maintainer: Colin Watson <cjwatson at debian.org>
  Architecture: amd64
  Uncompressed Size: 2,486 k
  Depends: bsdmainutils, debconf (>= 1.2.0) | debconf-2.0, groff-base (>= 1.18.1.1-15), libc6 (>= 2.17), libgdbm5 (>= 1.12), libpipeline1 (>= 1.5.0), libseccomp2 (>=
           2.1.0), zlib1g (>= 1:1.1.4)
  PreDepends: dpkg (>= 1.16.1~)
  Suggests: apparmor, groff, less, www-browser
  Conflicts: man, suidmanager (< 0.50), man-db:i386
  Breaks: manpages-tr (< 1.0.5.1-3), manpages-zh (< 1.5.2-1.1)
  Replaces: man, manpages-de (< 0.5-4), manpages-tr (< 1.0.5.1-3), manpages-zh (< 1.5.2-1.1), nlsutils
  Provides: man, man-browser, man-browser:i386, man-db:i386 (= 2.8.3-2)
  Provided by: man-db:i386 (2.8.3-2)

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