The .qmd files of the official Quarto website not rendering

[dense-set]

Hi. I was learning to build websites using Quarto, and I thought that looking at the .qmd files of the official Quarto website might be helpful to see things in real action. So, I undertook the following sequence of actions:

1. Forked and cloned the GitHub repo with all the branches.
2. I open the index.qmd file in the generated local repo via VS Code, and press Cmd + Shift + K to render.
3. But soon, I am greeted with an error message concerning Lua:

Error

quarto preview /Users/sarthak/Documents/quarto-web/index.qmd --no-browser --no-watch-inputs
➜  quarto-web git:(main) quarto preview /Users/sarthak/Documents/quarto-web/index.qmd --no-browser --no-watch-inputs
pandoc 
  to: html
  output-file: index.html
  standalone: true
  title-prefix: Quarto
  section-divs: false
  html-math-method: mathjax
  wrap: none
  default-image-extension: png
  toc: false
  css:
    - styles.css
    - index.css
  
metadata
  document-css: false
  link-citations: true
  date-format: long
  lang: en
  bibliography:
    - references.bib
  editor: source
  prerelease-title: Pre-release
  prerelease-lower: pre-release
  prerelease-mode: ''
  theme:
    light:
      - cosmo
      - theme.scss
  code-copy: true
  grid:
    sidebar-width: 250px
    body-width: 900px
    margin-width: 300px
  pagetitle: Quarto
  page-layout: custom
  description: |
    An open source technical publishing system for creating beautiful articles, websites, blogs, books, slides, and more. Supports Python, R, Julia, and JavaScript.
  image: quarto.png
  resources:
    - images/hero_animation.mp4
  
Output created: _site/index.html

Preparing to preview
[  1/269] bug-reports.qmd
[  2/269] trademark.qmd
[  3/269] docs/guide/index.qmd
[  4/269] docs/publishing/netlify.qmd
[  5/269] docs/publishing/github-pages.qmd
[  6/269] docs/publishing/rstudio-connect.qmd
[  7/269] docs/publishing/confluence.qmd
[  8/269] docs/publishing/quarto-pub.qmd
[  9/269] docs/publishing/ci.qmd
[ 10/269] docs/publishing/index.qmd
[ 11/269] docs/publishing/other.qmd
[ 12/269] docs/tools/vscode.qmd
[ 13/269] docs/tools/text-editors.qmd
[ 14/269] docs/tools/jupyter-lab.qmd
[ 15/269] docs/tools/vscode-notebook.qmd
[ 16/269] docs/tools/neovim.qmd
[ 17/269] docs/tools/jupyter-lab-extension.qmd
[ 18/269] docs/tools/rstudio.qmd
[ 19/269] docs/faq/rmarkdown.qmd
[ 20/269] docs/faq/index.qmd
[ 21/269] docs/gallery/index.qmd
[ 22/269] docs/projects/virtual-environments.qmd
[ 23/269] docs/projects/scripts.qmd
[ 24/269] docs/projects/code-execution.qmd
[ 25/269] docs/projects/environment.qmd
[ 26/269] docs/projects/quarto-projects.qmd
[ 27/269] docs/projects/profiles.qmd
[ 28/269] docs/troubleshooting/index.qmd
[ 29/269] docs/books/book-basics.qmd
Error running filter /Applications/quarto/share/filters/main.lua:
../../filters/tools-tabset.lua:35: attempt to index a nil value (field 'content')
stack traceback:
        /Applications/quarto/share/filters/main.lua:71: in function </Applications/quarto/share/filters/main.lua:70>
        (...tail calls...)
        [C]: in ?
        [C]: in method 'walk'
        /Applications/quarto/share/filters/main.lua:171: in function 'run_emulated_filter'
        /Applications/quarto/share/filters/main.lua:449: in local 'callback'
        [string "..."]:1789: in field 'withScriptFile'
        /Applications/quarto/share/filters/main.lua:452: in upvalue 'run_emulated_filter_chain'
        /Applications/quarto/share/filters/main.lua:495: in function </Applications/quarto/share/filters/main.lua:476>
stack traceback:
        /Applications/quarto/share/filters/main.lua:171: in function 'run_emulated_filter'
        /Applications/quarto/share/filters/main.lua:449: in local 'callback'
        [string "..."]:1789: in field 'withScriptFile'
        /Applications/quarto/share/filters/main.lua:452: in upvalue 'run_emulated_filter_chain'
        /Applications/quarto/share/filters/main.lua:495: in function </Applications/quarto/share/filters/main.lua:476>

Can you help me have the expected rendition?

---

Additional info:

• I run macOS (Ventura 13.3.1).
• I had Lua downloaded on my system (in /opt/local/bin) via MacPorts.

[cscheid]

You likely have an old version of quarto. The quarto website uses almost always very recent versions of quarto, so you need (eg) 1.4.87

[dense-set]

Thanks for the reply. I installed the latest version, 1.4.89, and again tried to render. But again, I am shown some error concerning with Lua:

"Cannot get Attr from TypeNil"

[...]
[ 89/241] docs/presentations/beamer.qmd
[ 90/241] docs/presentations/index.qmd
[ 91/241] docs/authoring/variables.qmd
Error running filter /Applications/quarto/share/filters/main.lua:
Cannot get Attr from TypeNil
stack traceback:
        /Applications/quarto/share/filters/main.lua:13276: in function </Applications/quarto/share/filters/main.lua:13260>
        [C]: in function 'lpeg.match'
        /Applications/quarto/share/filters/main.lua:13312: in function </Applications/quarto/share/filters/main.lua:13299>
        [C]: in ?
        [C]: in method 'walk'
        /Applications/quarto/share/filters/main.lua:98: in function 'run_emulated_filter'
        /Applications/quarto/share/filters/main.lua:13320: in field 'Pandoc'
        /Applications/quarto/share/filters/main.lua:74: in function 'run_emulated_filter'
        /Applications/quarto/share/filters/main.lua:566: in local 'callback'
        /Applications/quarto/share/filters/main.lua:577: in upvalue 'run_emulated_filter_chain'
        /Applications/quarto/share/filters/main.lua:610: in function </Applications/quarto/share/filters/main.lua:607>
stack traceback:
        /Applications/quarto/share/filters/main.lua:98: in function 'run_emulated_filter'
        /Applications/quarto/share/filters/main.lua:13320: in field 'Pandoc'
        /Applications/quarto/share/filters/main.lua:74: in function 'run_emulated_filter'
        /Applications/quarto/share/filters/main.lua:566: in local 'callback'
        /Applications/quarto/share/filters/main.lua:577: in upvalue 'run_emulated_filter_chain'
        /Applications/quarto/share/filters/main.lua:610: in function </Applications/quarto/share/filters/main.lua:607>

[cderv]

We possibly have an issue yes. It was pinned yesterday
quarto-dev/quarto-web@3dfaa2c

So it seems to work with 1.4.87 but not later version.

@dragonstyle did you identified the issue you encountered ?

[cscheid]

You do need the latest version. It compiles with 1.4.92. But if you want to ensure quarto-web consistently renders, I recommend just using the git version.

[dense-set]

@cscheid What do you mean by the "git version"? Something that's not enlisted in on the website https://quarto.org/docs/download/, and present here somewhere? Can you help me locate it?
(I have never downloaded things from GitHub before, so please bear with me.)

[baptiste]

I believe you'd want to follow this: https://github.com/quarto-dev/quarto-cli#development-version