Problems building with guile2

[Wm...]

Wed, 18 Nov 2015 02:41:10 
<1297C7F6D6AA2FB7BAA8D329 at bayswater.msalexander.com>
Mike Alexander <mta at umich.edu> wrote...

>I tried to merge maint into master tonight.  Although the merge seemed 
>to be fairly easy, the result wouldn't build.  I tried to figure out 
>why, but eventually gave up.  The problem exists in maint too, it won't 
>build with guile2.   There were a lot of changes to various Scheme 
>files recently on maint and something broke building with guile2.
>
>The first error I get is when it tries to compile 
>app-utils/business-prefs.scm.  It fails trying to load 
>gncmod-backend-dbi and gncmod-backend-xml and then gives up because 
>gnc:module-begin-syntax is unbound.  I have no idea why this file 
>should be loading those two backends.  I managed to make it load 
>gncmod-backend-xml ok, but nothing I did would make it load 
>gncmod-backend-dbi.  As far a I can tell no other Scheme file loads 
>this.  I also don't understand why gnc:module-begin-syntax is unbound. 
>Even adding an explicit load-module call for gnc-module didn't get it 
>bound and that module should already be loaded anyway.
>
>The complete build log is below.  Does anyone have any idea what is 
>wrong?

I got sort-of-similarly stuck a few weeks ago.  The solution for me (I 
think, I tried a load of things) was to delete my build directory.

My possibly red-herring history:
gnc build env is Ubuntu 14.04 LTS running under VirtualBox
upgraded VBox from 4 to 5
next build of gnc broke as snipped below
which sent me off wandering thinking it was VirtualBox to blame

[snip]

>;;; note: source file ../../src/app-utils/gnucash/app-utils.scm
>;;;       newer than compiled 
>/Users/mta/.cache/guile/ccache/2.0-LE-8-2.0/tools/gnucash-git/gnucash/sr
>c/app-utils/app-utils.scm.go

# my build got stuck on something other than dbi stuff
# but also a scheme file

# my backtrace from here on was very similar

>Backtrace:
>In ice-9/eval-string.scm:
> 44: 19 [read-and-eval #<input: string 103ca2dd0> #:lang ...]
> 37: 18 [lp (use-modules (gnucash engine))]
>In ice-9/eval.scm:
>505: 17 [#<procedure 1020902e0 at ice-9/eval.scm:499:4 (exp)> 
>(use-modules #)]
>In ice-9/psyntax.scm:
>1106: 16 [expand-top-sequence ((use-modules (gnucash engine))) () ...]
>989: 15 [scan ((use-modules (gnucash engine))) () ...]
>279: 14 [scan ((# #) #(syntax-object *unspecified* # #)) () (()) ...]
>In ice-9/boot-9.scm:
>3597: 13 [process-use-modules (((gnucash engine)))]
>702: 12 [map #<procedure 1021c22a0 at ice-9/boot-9.scm:3597:25 
>(mif-args)> ((#))]
>3598: 11 [#<procedure 1021c22a0 at ice-9/boot-9.scm:3597:25 (mif-args)> 
>(#)]
>2864: 10 [resolve-interface (gnucash engine) #:select ...]
>2789: 9 [#<procedure 1021b9b80 at ice-9/boot-9.scm:2777:4 (name 
>#:optional autoload version #:key ensure)> # ...]
>3065: 8 [try-module-autoload (gnucash engine) #f]
>2401: 7 [save-module-excursion #<procedure 103c53a50 at 
>ice-9/boot-9.scm:3066:17 ()>]
>3085: 6 [#<procedure 103c53a50 at ice-9/boot-9.scm:3066:17 ()>]
>In unknown file:
>  ?: 5 [primitive-load-path "gnucash/engine" ...]
>In ice-9/boot-9.scm:
>1724: 4 [%start-stack load-stack ...]
>1729: 3 [#<procedure 103de2ab0 ()>]
>In unknown file:
>  ?: 2 [primitive-load-path "engine-utilities"]
>In ../../../../gnucash/src/engine/engine-utilities.scm:
> 25: 1 [#<procedure 103de1460 ()>]
>In ice-9/boot-9.scm:
>106: 0 [#<procedure 102529d40 at ice-9/boot-9.scm:97:6 (thrown-k . 
>args)> unbound-variable ...]
>
>ice-9/boot-9.scm:106:20: In procedure #<procedure 102529d40 at 
>ice-9/boot-9.scm:97:6 (thrown-k . args)>:
>ice-9/boot-9.scm:106:20: In procedure module-lookup: Unbound variable: 
>gnc:module-begin-syntax
>make[1]: *** [business-prefs.go] Error 1
>make: *** [all-recursive] Error 1

since then any guile stuff I've attempted hasn't worked (except for 
report changes which are OK).

Before reading Mike's posting I was working back through dependencies 
trying to work out why

make
make doc
make check # <-- this bit has gone strange
make install

wasn't doing what it used to.

the things that prompt me to write are the specificity of
ice-9
and the difference in OS, y'see I had thought from
http://wiki.gnucash.org/wiki/Building
that this was a Debian OS family oddity.

-- 
Wm...