tikz chunks yields an error

[snhansen]

Description

After I've reinstalled MiKTeX and Quarto, I can't compile tikz chunks anymore. For the following document

---
format: 
  html:
    keep-tex: true
    keep-md: true

execute:
  engine: knitr
---

```{tikz}
\begin{tikzpicture}
\draw (0,0) -- (4,0) -- (4,4) -- (0,4) -- (0,0);
\end{tikzpicture}
```

I'm getting the following error:

processing file: test.qmd
1/3
2/3 [unnamed-chunk-1]
! Sorry, but C:\Users\au234616\AppData\Local\Programs\MiKTeX\miktex\bin\x64\pdflatex.exe did not succeed.

! The log file hopefully contains the information to get MiKTeX going again:

!   C:\Users\au234616\AppData\Local\MiKTeX\miktex\log\pdflatex.log

Error:
! LaTeX failed to compile tikzd7c1d64de3.tex. See https://yihui.org/tinytex/r/#debugging for debugging tips. See tikzd7c1d64de3.log for more info.
Backtrace:
     ▆
  1. └─global .main()
  2.   └─execute(...)
  3.     └─rmarkdown::render(...)
  4.       └─knitr::knit(knit_input, knit_output, envir = envir, quiet = quiet)
  5.         └─knitr:::process_file(text, output)
  6.           ├─xfun:::handle_error(...)
  7.           ├─base::withCallingHandlers(...)
  8.           └─knitr:::process_group(group)
  9.             └─knitr:::call_block(x)
 10.               └─knitr:::block_exec(params)
 11.                 ├─knitr:::in_input_dir(engine(options))
 12.                 │ └─knitr:::in_dir(input_dir(), expr)
 13.                 └─knitr (local) engine(options)
 14.                   └─tinytex::latexmk(texf)
 15.                     └─tinytex:::latexmk_emu(...)
 16.                       └─tinytex (local) run_engine()
 17.                         ├─tinytex:::system2_quiet(...)
 18.                         └─tinytex (local) on_error()
 19.                           └─tinytex:::show_latex_error(file, logfile)

Quitting from test.qmd:13-17 [unnamed-chunk-1]
Execution halted
WARN: Error encountered when rendering files

The content of tikzd7c1d64de3.log doesn't reveal much: tikzd7c1d64de3.log

It seems to be calling tinytex::latexmk() internally, so I tried using this on the following document which works:

\documentclass{standalone}

\usepackage{tikz}

\begin{document}

\begin{tikzpicture}
\draw (0,0) -- (4,0) -- (4,4) -- (0,4) -- (0,0);
\end{tikzpicture}

\end{document}

Has anyone an idea how to troubleshoot this? I can't seem to get access to the .tex-file which is created for the chunk (tikzd7c1d64de3.tex) which is deleted immediately after.

[mcanouil]

The issue appears to be that knitr was not succesfull at compiling your tikz diagram.
I would look on knitr repository/stack* forums for similar issue, or without using knitr at all (especially since it requires quite few tools: magick, pdftools, qpdf, etc., and their matching system libraries):

• https://github.com/dialoa/imagify
• https://github.com/pandoc-ext/diagram
• https://github.com/danmackinlay/quarto_tikz

Source: https://m.canouil.dev/quarto-extensions/

[snhansen]

I investigated this a bit further and found the template which knitr uses for tikz engines. It's located at .../AppData/Local/R/win-library/4.5/knitr/misc/tikz2pdf.tex and is essentially this:

\documentclass[
%% TIKZ_CLASSOPTION %%
tikz
]{standalone}
\usepackage{amsmath}
\usetikzlibrary{matrix}
%% EXTRA_TIKZ_PREAMBLE_CODE %%
\begin{document}
%% TIKZ_CODE %%
\end{document}

Trying to render this with pdflatex revealed that I was missing some package, which I then could install and everything works now. The issue at hand is that I'm using MiKTeX which shows an installation popup for missing packages which can't be handled by knitr.