I recall reading some postings about how bmake or something else changed
so that error messages (or other feedback) is hidden.

I have been receiveing a lot of pkgsrc builds (different packages) failing
with simply

*** Error code 1

(And I think other numbers too.)

Without any explanation on the error itself.

I tried PKG_DEBUG_LEVEL=2 but it didn't provide any answers for me.

This last time it was with my bc package:

cd .  && makeinfo --no-split `echo bc.texi | sed 's,.*/,,'`

So I ran it manually:

bc.texi:533: warning: unlikely character ( in @var.
 ... and so on ...

I see that was in my notes.

Why don't I see the error messages any more with bmake? What can I do to
get back the previous behaviour? (Or why should I use the current
behaviour?)

Thank you,

   Jeremy C. Reed
   http://bsd.reedmedia.net/