Rendering to "pdf" doesn't work

[piiskop]

Once i want a file to be rendered to pdf, i get the following error message:

running xelatex - 1
command xelatex not found, attempting install
finding package for xelatex
1 package to install
installing xelatex (1 of 1)
ERROR: tlmgr returned a non zero status code
TLPDB: not a directory, not loading: /home/kalmer/texmf
tlmgr: running in usermode, did you call `tlmgr init-usertree'?

[dragonstyle]

I think perhaps there is an issue with your installation of TeXLive. Perhaps this would be of help:

https://tex.stackexchange.com/questions/137428/tlmgr-cannot-setup-tlpdb

I'm guessing that you need to run the tlmgr init-usertree command to enable usermode. See https://tug.org/texlive/doc/tlmgr.html#USER-MODE

[piiskop]

kalmer@test:~$ tlmgr init-usertree

tlmgr: user mode database already set up in
tlmgr: /home/kalmer/.TinyTeX/texmf-local/tlpkg/texlive.tlpdb
tlmgr: not overwriting it.

running xelatex - 1
command xelatex not found, attempting install
finding package for xelatex
1 package to install
installing xelatex (1 of 1)
ERROR: tlmgr returned a non zero status code
TLPDB: not a directory, not loading: /home/kalmer/texmf
tlmgr: running in usermode, did you call `tlmgr init-usertree'?

[dragonstyle]

I'm not enough of an expert on TeXlive to give too much additional help - it seems like the issue is that we're detecting that the xelatex command is missing and attempting to using the tlmgr to install it. Since something is amiss with your installation of TeXlive, however, that is failing. You could set something like:

pdf-engine: pdflatex

in your document front matter to instruct us not to use xelatex (note that pdflatex unicode character support is minimal). You also could manually install xelatex using tlmgr and we will use that installed version without problem.

[piiskop]

tlmgr install xelatex

tlmgr: package repository https://www.nic.funet.fi/pub/TeX/CTAN/systems/texlive/tlnet (verified)
tlmgr install: package xelatex not present in repository.
tlmgr: action install returned an error; continuing.
tlmgr: An error has occurred. See above messages. Exiting.

As for pdflatex:

pandoc
to: latex
output-file: authoring.tex
standalone: true
shift-heading-level-by: -1
pdf-engine: pdflatex
variables:
graphics: true
tables: true
default-image-extension: pdf
toc: true
number-sections: true
filters:
- crossref
- citeproc

metadata
documentclass: scrartcl
classoption:
- DIV=11
- numbers=noendperiod
papersize: letter
header-includes:
- '\KOMAoption{captions}{tableheading}'
block-headings: true
title: Housing Prices
author: Mine Çetinkaya-Rundel
bibliography:
- references.bib
geometry:
- top=30mm
- left=30mm

running pdflatex - 1
This is pdfTeX, Version 3.14159265-2.6-1.40.20 (TeX Live 2019/Debian) (preloaded format=pdflatex)
restricted \write18 enabled.
entering extended mode

updating tlmgr

updating existing packages
finding package for tcolorbox.sty

compilation failed- no matching packages
LaTeX Error: File `tcolorbox.sty' not found.

Type X to quit or to proceed,
or enter new name. (Default extension: sty)

Enter file name:
! Emergency stop.
<read *>

l.144 @ifpackageloaded
{fontawesome5}{}{\usepackage{fontawesome5}}^^M

see authoring.log for more information.

[dragonstyle]

Not looking good! I think until you figure out the underlying with the TeXLive installation, this may not work. Do you know how that TeXLive installation was installed / configured? We do support installation of TeXLive using quarto tools install tinytex, but that will require the exiting installation to be remove before it will install...

[piiskop]

i only know that building works just fine, rendering doesn't. Using bookdown, i can build a nice PDF-file.

i don't know exactly how TeXLive was installed / configured. How can i figure it out?

Your given command resulted with:

Installing tinytex
Install canceled - tinytex is already installed.

apt nor snap recognize tinytex.

[jmbuhr]

Currently running into a similar issue. There was some change in the tlmgr repositories:

ERROR: Your TexLive version is not updated enough to connect to the remote repository and download packages. Please update your installation of TexLive or TinyTex.

Underlying message: Local TeX Live (2021) is older than remote repository (2022).
Cross release updates are only supported with
  update-tlmgr-latest(.sh/.exe) --update
See https://tug.org/texlive/upgrade.html for details.


Error: Your TexLive version is not updated enough to connect to the remote repository and download packages. Please update your installation of TexLive or TinyTex.

Underlying message: Local TeX Live (2021) is older than remote repository (2022).
Cross release updates are only supported with
  update-tlmgr-latest(.sh/.exe) --update
See https://tug.org/texlive/upgrade.html for details.

Quarto detects an existing TexLive installation and thus doesn't want to instll tinytex:

$ quarto tools install tinytex  
Installing tinytex
An existing TexLive installation has been detected.

So now I am trying to find all the remnants of the old TexLive installation and remove them.

[jmbuhr]

Here is what worked for me:

• Follow the top answer here: https://tex.stackexchange.com/questions/95483/how-to-remove-everything-related-to-tex-live-for-fresh-install-on-ubuntu
• check if which tlmgr returns anything, remove it if it does
• rm -r ~/.TinyTeX/

Then quarto tools install tinytex (follow instructions if you get warnings)

[piiskop]

i also could solve the issue using a similar workaround. This however doesn't answer the question why PDF'ying works with bookdown and doesn't with Quarto without manual interfering into the installation of TinyTex.

[dragonstyle]

I think the issue is likely that Bookdown doesn't need to install any additional packages to render your PDF and Quarto does. Since TeXLive can't install any new packages, anything that needs a new package and attempts to use tlmgr to install will result in a failure.

I believe that if you add a package requirement to your rmarkdown document (for example tcolorbox, which Quarto uses for callouts), you will find that rendering fails as well.

---
title: "Using more LaTeX packages"
output: 
  pdf_document:
    extra_dependencies: ["tcolorbox"]
---

Until the TexLive installation is able to install new packages, rendering of documents will be dependent upon what packages are available locally / already installed.

[jmbuhr]

Random sidenote: I just love how the installation guide for TeX Live (https://www.tug.org/texlive/quickinstall.html), which was apparently updated in 2022, features this sentence:

"A separate page describes various ways to acquire the software. It boils down to either getting the DVD from a TeX user group (ideally by becoming a member), or downloading in various ways."

[jeremiahpslewis]

Posting in case helpful: if you are looking for a template repo with a Dockerfile and the appropriate configuration so that things (mostly) 'just work' with Docker + VSCode, you can check out this project: https://github.com/jeremiahpslewis/quarto-reproducible-gh-actions which might save you some of the 'works on my PC' pain of getting latex installed.

[melissa-barca]

@dragonstyle This has been causing the RSW doc builds to fail for almost a month now as well. Quarto initially recognizes this and skips over an attempt to reinstall it:

[2022-05-23T16:51:20.418Z] Installing tinytex
[2022-05-23T16:51:20.418Z] Install canceled - tinytex is already installed.

...but eventually quarto render fails with:

[2022-05-23T16:53:08.481Z] runnning xelatex - 1
[2022-05-23T16:53:08.481Z] 
[2022-05-23T16:53:08.481Z] No TeX installation was detected.
[2022-05-23T16:53:08.481Z] 
[2022-05-23T16:53:08.481Z] Please run 'quarto tools install tinytex' to install TinyTex.
[2022-05-23T16:53:08.481Z] If you prefer, you may install TexLive or another TeX distribution.
[2022-05-23T16:53:08.481Z] 
[2022-05-23T16:53:09.041Z] Error: Render failed with a non-zero error code
[2022-05-23T16:53:09.041Z] Execution halted
[2022-05-23T16:53:09.041Z] CMakeFiles/build_book.dir/build.make:57: recipe for target 'build_book' failed
[2022-05-23T16:53:09.041Z] make[2]: *** [build_book] Error 1
[2022-05-23T16:53:09.041Z] CMakeFiles/Makefile2:67: recipe for target 'CMakeFiles/build_book.dir/all' failed
[2022-05-23T16:53:09.041Z] make[1]: *** [CMakeFiles/build_book.dir/all] Error 2
[2022-05-23T16:53:09.041Z] Makefile:83: recipe for target 'all' failed
[2022-05-23T16:53:09.041Z] make: *** [all] Error 2
script returned exit code 2

It looks very similiar to the errors we debugged a few months ago. I'm trying to figure out the correct way to get it installed in our docker image but keep hitting similar errors.

[jjallaire]

If you are running an older version of Quarto you may need to update (there was a texlive update from 2021 to 2022 which required some changes to Quarto to work correctly). @dragonstyle is that your understanding as well?

[jmbuhr]

It is probably related to this bigger texlive update (https://tug.org/texlive/upgrade.html), which advises to just do a fresh installation. It also states that "You don't need to remove an existing installation.", but I am not sure how true that is. Maybe quarto tools install could have a --force option, to attempt an installation even if a previous version is detected?