Re: texinfo not happy with texlive not producing log?

[Karl Berry]

    Can't locate mktexlsr.pl

mktexlsr.pl is (should be) in texmf-dist/scripts/texlive/mktexlsr.pl,
which seems to be in your @INC. I can't explain it. Maybe your
installation failed partway through.

You can run  mktexfmt pdfetex.fmt  (or whatever) on its own to test.

    I can't find the format file `etex.fmt'!

So, your TeX is not functional.

etex, and every other engine, always writes a .log file after a normal
run.  (texi2dvi used to check for a functional TeX, as to give a better
error message than the misleading "no log file or no openout", but I
guess that has changed.)  --best, karl.