patched page explodes

[snip some thousands of lines like those "error reading..."]
error reading package index file $p(:9:)/pkgIndex.tcl: no such file or directory
error reading package index file $p(:8:)/pkgIndex.tcl: no such file or directory
error reading package index file $p(:7:)/pkgIndex.tcl: no such file or directory
error reading package index file $p(:6:)/pkgIndex.tcl: no such file or directory
error reading package index file $p(:4:)/pkgIndex.tcl: no such file or directory
error reading package index file $p(:2:)/pkgIndex.tcl: no such file or directory
error reading package index file $p(:1:)/pkgIndex.tcl: no such file or directory
error reading package index file $p(:0:)/pkgIndex.tcl: no such file or directory
/tmp/page: Bad argument "me".
        Unable to locate writer or load plugin "me" (ERROR for slave interp2 : no such file or directory)