This is my problem system. it is a Fedora 29 system. gambas 3.12     I am not able to upgrade the OS on this due to software issues. newer OS will bring copy of flawed software. Well the issue is that I have problems running gambas. I had gambas programs running on this in the past. Now the issue is anytime I run a gambas program it fails. If I try to run the gambas3 ide from the terminal I get this response.

/usr/bin/env: ‘gbr3’: No such file or directory

the /usr/bin/env  does exist as a file.

Help Please.

Does gbr3 also reside in /usr/bin ?

Or how about compiling latest gambas from source?

Seems a mime misconfiguration
Maybe re install Gambas may fix?

3.12 is ancient though.
Try compile  

 no, the gbr3 does not reside in /usr/bin  I just tried installing and compiling from source using your scripts (thanks by the way). everything went fine, no warning or errors. but no joy either.

Yes the stuff is ancient and that is why it is my problem child. I would love to upgrade and solve everything but due to one poorly written yet vital software, I can't.

I agree that something is off since in the past this ran gambas programs. even attempting to run a compiled gambas program I get the same response. So I think it is configuration. Help me figure it out and teach me along the way please.

 well gbr3 and a few others should be in /usr/bin

is your PATH correct?
$ echo $PATH
should have /bin and /usr/bin

is gbr3 anywhere?
$ which gbr3

something sure seems wrong if the install script seemed to go without error but it's still not working ???

try complete removal
sudo dnf remove gambas3*
sudo rm -f /bin/gb*3
sudo rm -f /usr/bin/gb*3
sudo rm -f /usr/bin/gambas3 /usr/bin/gambas3.gambas
sudo rm -rf /usr/lib/gambas3
sudo rm -rf /usr/share/gambas3
sudo rm -rf ~/.local/share/gambas3

then either try the install from source again (you should be able to just run 'sudo make install' from the source dir if you already compiled)
compile may give more info in it's output about possible problems,

 that worked. I now have 3.19 running on that system and all gambas programs are working on it.

Great relief since in trying to fix it I broke it. I tried to reinstall gambas and ended up making the only gambas program running into a door stop.

You got everything going it is perfect now. Better than expected.

Now the 2nd part. teach me, what happened and what went wrong so I can know how to handle this sort of thing on my own.

 I don't really know , but when all else fails completely removing and reinstalling has worked for me in the past.

I have had components that just would not update in /usr/lib/gambas3 before
I also somehow managed to mess my downloaded wiki once
both times I only fixed it with complete removal and re-install.

I guess with complete removal every install step and configuration happens again to configure correctly
But without complete removal some install steps must be skipped or something?

Glad you got it fixed.