bug in skeyval, possible solution with firstaid

Question

Since today (or yesterday) one of my packages [paresse.sty] is giving an error.
I've tracked down the origin to skeyval which says
~/texlive/2020/texmf-dist/tex/latex/skeyval/skeyval-core.tex:8460: 
Package skeyval Error: Patching 'end' failed! (skeyval)
'skvAtEndEnvironment' will not work

I've got the impression that skeyval tries to do some almost legal moves there and that a recent change in the LaTeX2e kernel has put some hindrance in its expectations.
As far as I understand what I read, it seems to me that firstaid.sty could come at the rescue for a quick fix (until I rewrite my style file without skeyval), but I am at my wit's end there.
Any help for a quick fix will be highly appreciated.

Ulrike Fischer · Accepted Answer

skeyval, catoptions and the other packages from this author patches
a number of core latex commands. With the new latex and the
new hook management and the changes this involves they fail in
various places (the author has been notified some time ago about this).
The firstaid package will not help here: the number of packages and commands to correct to
allow them to work again is too large, finding the right correction is rather complicated
and whatever one do will perhaps break the hook management
for other packages.
I advise to drop skeyval (and the other packages) and use a keyval
interface which doesn't intrude so much in latex internals.
Side remark: Please test your packages also regularly with latex-dev. What is "latex-dev"?. We are providing this format just for such cases so that packages do not get catched by surprise by the side-effects of a latex update. We try to track down packages which are affected directly by changes and notify the authors, but it is not really possible to check every dependant package too. So we need the help of package authors here.

bug in skeyval, possible solution with firstaid

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