quarto 1.5.0 macOS binaries not available on CRAN

[jabenninghoff]

According to the official quarto page on CRAN, the current version of the quarto R package is 1.5.0, but binaries for all versions of macOS aren't available. This appears to be the result of build errors for all macOS flavors (2 failed tests, both the same):

Error in `find_quarto()`: Quarto command-line tools path not found!
    Please make sure you have installed and added Quarto to your PATH or set the QUARTO_PATH environment variable.

This is preventing proper installation of the package on macOS, since a workaround for R bug 18396 blocks installation from source if binaries are available (regardless of version).

[remlapmot]

Just pointing out that specifying the type = 'source' argument to install.packages() will get you 1.5.0 on macOS, e.g.,

install.packages('quarto', type = 'source', repos = 'https://cran.rstudio.com')
utils::packageVersion('quarto')
#> [1] '1.5.0'
version
#>                _                           
#> platform       aarch64-apple-darwin20      
#> arch           aarch64                     
#> os             darwin20                    
#> system         aarch64, darwin20           
#> status                                     
#> major          4                           
#> minor          5.1                         
#> year           2025                        
#> month          06                          
#> day            13                          
#> svn rev        88306                       
#> language       R                           
#> version.string R version 4.5.1 (2025-06-13)
#> nickname       Great Square Root

^{Created on 2025-08-05 with reprex v2.1.1}

[jabenninghoff]

Just pointing out that specifying the type = 'source' argument to install.packages() will get you 1.5.0 on macOS, e.g.,

That's true, my preference is to use binaries.

[remlapmot]

It's worth knowing that there are binaries on https://quarto-dev.r-universe.dev/quarto

So, you could amend the repos argument to obtain the current devel version

install.packages(
  'quarto',
  repos = c('https://quarto-dev.r-universe.dev', 'https://cloud.r-project.org'))
#> 
#> The downloaded binary packages are in
#>  /var/folders/1l/w0qjrymd3hb44s3skrzn4w4w0000gn/T//RtmprR4yGh/downloaded_packages
utils::packageVersion('quarto')
#> [1] '1.5.0.9000'

^{Created on 2025-08-05 with reprex v2.1.1}

[jabenninghoff]

It's worth knowing that there are binaries on https://quarto-dev.r-universe.dev/quarto

I've had some (admittedly rare) issues with non-CRAN binaries, so again, my preference is to install binaries from CRAN. This is not an urgent issue for me, and it seems like asking for a fix for the official R package repository is a reasonable request. Is this a "won't fix" issue somehow?

[cderv]

Thanks for the report. I was off in august, and slowly catching up.

It seems that some Mac CRAN machines no longer have Quarto available. I don't know if this is persistent, but I will better protect the test suites and vignette building against it.

[jabenninghoff]

Thanks, FYI, @jennybc is also investigating as it affects usethis as well: r-lib/usethis#2162

[cderv]

I have merged

• Add a job for no quarto installed on all OS #287

and I'll do a patch release that should restore MacOS binaries

[jennybc]

I think the "no Quarto" CI job is a great idea!

FWIW as a hack-y method of poking things in usethis, I was also able to reproduce my failure with devtools::check_mac_release(). Now, sadly, I wasn't able to verify I've fixed it that way, because my fix uses quarto::quarto_available(), which was introduced in the latest version of quarto, for which there are no mac binaries on CRAN. And macbuilder doesn't seem to install from source, but rather prefers / can only use binaries? I can see it's using an old quarto. (I set a minimum version, but that is not actually enforced for suggested packages):

NOTE: there is no source for package quarto [quarto], installed CRAN version will be used.

[cderv]

1.5.1 has been published on CRAN. We now need to wait for the binaries.
https://cran.r-project.org/web/packages/quarto/index.html

[jabenninghoff]

FYI @jennybc, a workaround for R bug 18396 blocks installation from source if binaries are available (regardless of version) on macOS, so I would expect macbuilder to only install binaries.