I found the command instantiate encountered errors in Julia1.3, which works quite well before.
I have developed a package, hotspot, I run the following commands.
(v1.3) pkg> activate .
Activating environment at `~/julia_dev/mt/hotspot/Project.toml`
(Hotspot) pkg> instantiate
ERROR: MethodError: no method matching joinpath(::Nothing)
Closest candidates are:
joinpath(::String, ::String) at path.jl:265
joinpath(::AbstractString) at path.jl:247
joinpath(::AbstractString, ::AbstractString) at path.jl:274
...
Stacktrace:
[1] stat(::Nothing) at ./stat.jl:109
[2] isdir(::Nothing) at ./stat.jl:311
[3] is_instantiated(::Pkg.Types.Context) at /Users/julia/buildbot/worker/package_macos64/build/usr/share/julia/stdlib/v1.3/Pkg/src/Operations.jl:83
[4] #instantiate#114(::Nothing, ::Bool, ::Bool, ::Pkg.BinaryPlatforms.MacOS, ::Base.Iterators.Pairs{Union{},Union{},Tuple{},NamedTuple{(),Tuple{}}}, ::typeof(Pkg.API.instantiate), ::Pkg.Types.Context) at /Users/julia/buildbot/worker/package_macos64/build/usr/share/julia/stdlib/v1.3/Pkg/src/API.jl:738
[5] instantiate(::Pkg.Types.Context) at /Users/julia/buildbot/worker/package_macos64/build/usr/share/julia/stdlib/v1.3/Pkg/src/API.jl:720
[6] do_instantiate!(::Dict{Symbol,Any}, ::Array{String,1}, ::Dict{Symbol,Any}) at /Users/julia/buildbot/worker/package_macos64/build/usr/share/julia/stdlib/v1.3/Pkg/src/REPLMode.jl:477
[7] #invokelatest#1(::Base.Iterators.Pairs{Union{},Union{},Tuple{},NamedTuple{(),Tuple{}}}, ::typeof(Base.invokelatest), ::Any, ::Any, ::Vararg{Any,N} where N) at ./essentials.jl:709
[8] invokelatest(::Any, ::Any, ::Vararg{Any,N} where N) at ./essentials.jl:708
[9] do_cmd!(::Pkg.REPLMode.Command, ::REPL.LineEditREPL) at /Users/julia/buildbot/worker/package_macos64/build/usr/share/julia/stdlib/v1.3/Pkg/src/REPLMode.jl:412
[10] #do_cmd#23(::Bool, ::typeof(Pkg.REPLMode.do_cmd), ::REPL.LineEditREPL, ::String) at /Users/julia/buildbot/worker/package_macos64/build/usr/share/julia/stdlib/v1.3/Pkg/src/REPLMode.jl:391
[11] do_cmd at /Users/julia/buildbot/worker/package_macos64/build/usr/share/julia/stdlib/v1.3/Pkg/src/REPLMode.jl:387 [inlined]
[12] (::Pkg.REPLMode.var"#28#31"{REPL.LineEditREPL,REPL.LineEdit.Prompt})(::REPL.LineEdit.MIState, ::Base.GenericIOBuffer{Array{UInt8,1}}, ::Bool) at /Users/julia/buildbot/worker/package_macos64/build/usr/share/julia/stdlib/v1.3/Pkg/src/REPLMode.jl:619
[13] #invokelatest#1 at ./essentials.jl:709 [inlined]
[14] invokelatest at ./essentials.jl:708 [inlined]
[15] run_interface(::REPL.Terminals.TextTerminal, ::REPL.LineEdit.ModalInterface, ::REPL.LineEdit.MIState) at /Users/julia/buildbot/worker/package_macos64/build/usr/share/julia/stdlib/v1.3/REPL/src/LineEdit.jl:2306
[16] run_frontend(::REPL.LineEditREPL, ::REPL.REPLBackendRef) at /Users/julia/buildbot/worker/package_macos64/build/usr/share/julia/stdlib/v1.3/REPL/src/REPL.jl:1045
[17] run_repl(::REPL.AbstractREPL, ::Any) at /Users/julia/buildbot/worker/package_macos64/build/usr/share/julia/stdlib/v1.3/REPL/src/REPL.jl:201
[18] (::Base.var"#770#772"{Bool,Bool,Bool,Bool})(::Module) at ./client.jl:382
[19] #invokelatest#1 at ./essentials.jl:709 [inlined]
[20] invokelatest at ./essentials.jl:708 [inlined]
[21] run_main_repl(::Bool, ::Bool, ::Bool, ::Bool, ::Bool) at ./client.jl:366
[22] exec_options(::Base.JLOptions) at ./client.jl:304
[23] _start() at ./client.jl:460
The version information,
Commit 2d5741174c (2019-12-30 21:36 UTC)
Platform Info:
OS: macOS (x86_64-apple-darwin18.6.0)
CPU: Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-8500 CPU @ 3.00GHz
WORD_SIZE: 64
LIBM: libopenlibm
LLVM: libLLVM-6.0.1 (ORCJIT, skylake)
I also tested on linux and got the same error information.
These command works well in old versions.