Internal Error: Couldn't find an svg element in svg string

[juliohm]

Bug description

ERROR: Internal Error: Couldn't find an svg element in svg string

This is a bug in quarto. We apologize for the inconvenience.
Please consider reporting it at https://github.com/quarto-dev/quarto-cli. Thank you!

Stack trace:
    at resolveSize (file:///opt/quarto/bin/quarto.js:82001:15)
    at eventLoopTick (ext:core/01_core.js:175:7)
    at async makePng (file:///opt/quarto/bin/quarto.js:82344:55)
    at async makeDefault (file:///opt/quarto/bin/quarto.js:82396:24)
    at async Object.cell (file:///opt/quarto/bin/quarto.js:82419:20)
    at async Promise.all (index 0)
    at async Object.document (file:///opt/quarto/bin/quarto.js:39218:25)
    at async handleLanguageCells (file:///opt/quarto/bin/quarto.js:39188:42)
    at async file:///opt/quarto/bin/quarto.js:85737:51
    at async withTimingAsync (file:///opt/quarto/bin/quarto.js:16889:25)

Steps to reproduce

Run quarto render --to pdf on this project: https://github.com/JuliaEarth/geospatial-data-science-with-julia

Expected behavior

PDF output.

Actual behavior

Error message.

Your environment

Julia Version 1.11.3
Commit d63adeda50d (2025-01-21 19:42 UTC)
Build Info:
  Official https://julialang.org/ release
Platform Info:
  OS: Linux (x86_64-linux-gnu)
  CPU: 8 × Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-9700 CPU @ 3.00GHz
  WORD_SIZE: 64
  LLVM: libLLVM-16.0.6 (ORCJIT, skylake)
Threads: 8 default, 0 interactive, 4 GC (on 8 virtual cores)
Environment:
  JULIA_NUM_THREADS = 8

Quarto check output

Quarto 1.7.6
[✓] Checking environment information...
      Quarto cache location: /home/juliohm/.cache/quarto
[✓] Checking versions of quarto binary dependencies...
      Pandoc version 3.4.0: OK
      Dart Sass version 1.70.0: OK
      Deno version 1.46.3: OK
      Typst version 0.11.0: OK
[✓] Checking versions of quarto dependencies......OK
[✓] Checking Quarto installation......OK
      Version: 1.7.6
      Path: /opt/quarto/bin

[✓] Checking tools....................OK
      Chromium: 869685
      TinyTeX: (not installed)

[✓] Checking LaTeX....................OK
      Tex:  (not detected)

[✓] Checking basic markdown render....OK

[✓] Checking Python 3 installation....OK
      Version: 3.13.1
      Path: /usr/bin/python3
      Jupyter: 5.7.2
      Kernels: python3, julia-1.11, julia-1.10, julia-1.9

[✓] Checking Jupyter engine render....OK

[✓] Checking R installation...........OK
      Version: 4.4.2
      Path: /usr/lib64/R
      LibPaths:
        - /usr/lib/R/library
      knitr: (None)
      rmarkdown: (None)

      The knitr package is not available in this R installation.
      Install with install.packages("knitr")
      The rmarkdown package is not available in this R installation.
      Install with install.packages("rmarkdown")

[mcanouil]

As explained in your previous report, it's not possible to debug a project that big.

Please take out everything until you end up with something small that can be used to reproduce the issue.

[juliohm]

The issue occurs in the preface.qmd. You can comment out all other chapters in the _quarto.yml file to reproduce the issue. The root seems to be related to the inline svg files, e.g.:

https://github.com/JuliaEarth/geospatial-data-science-with-julia/blob/b00c144aafe8ce26e99cf037fb2ba7fb91233bb7/preface.qmd#L16

[mvf]

I'm also affected by this Quarto 1.6.12 regression. Going back to 1.6.11 for now.

[mcanouil]

Could any of you share something small to allow us to reproduce?
Like creating a book with:

quarto create project book issue12038

and modify this project with whatever is needed to reproduce.

Using the current development version and assuming the issue was "inline svg", I cannot reproduce:

https://github.com/mcanouil/quarto-issues-experiments/tree/main/quarto-cli-12038

[mvf]

Good news, this seems to be user/configuration error. Just a better error message would be nice 😅.

It occurs trying to render {mermaid} blocks without chromium-browser in PATH. Confirmed working on both 1.6.12 and 1.7.13 after fixing my environment.

[mcanouil]

@juliohm

The issue occurs in the preface.qmd. You can comment out all other chapters in the _quarto.yml file to reproduce the issue. The root seems to be related to the inline svg files, e.g.:

https://github.com/JuliaEarth/geospatial-data-science-with-julia/blob/b00c144aafe8ce26e99cf037fb2ba7fb91233bb7/preface.qmd#L16

That's not how it works unfortunately.

I cannot reproduce you claim if I remove all chapters and also all content below the line you referenced.

project:
  type: book

book:
  title: "Geospatial Data Science with Julia"
  cover-image: "images/cover.svg"
  author: "Júlio Hoffimann"
  date: today
  chapters:
    - index.qmd
    - preface.qmd

bibliography: references.bib

format:
  html:
    theme:
      light: flatly
      dark: solar
    mermaid:
      theme: dark

[mcanouil]

Good news, this seems to be user/configuration error. Just a better error message would be nice 😅.

It occurs trying to render {mermaid} blocks without chromium-browser in PATH. Confirmed working on both 1.6.12 and 1.7.13 after fixing my environment.

@mvf Thanks this is helpful!

@juliohm do you have any chromium-based browser in your environments?
Chrome changed some options used to basically "take a screenshot" of HTML components such as diagrams made with mermaid. The current "chromium" version that Quarto offers to install is outdated, but browser you have installed are not.

Since you are using the pre-release, could you try with the latest pre-release?

For reference:

• Chrome Headless improvements #11877

Worth reading:

• Transition to Chrome new headless mode #10532

[juliohm]

@juliohm do you have any chromium-based browser in your environments?

I have Chromium installed, but Quarto asked me to install a local one with quarto install chromium. Should I uninstall the local one and update my PATH to point to the global Chromium installation?

[juliohm]

Actually, my system-wide chromium is already available in my PATH under /usr/bin. Perhaps this issue is caused by the executable name assumed by Quarto? The name chromium-browser is not appropriate in this case.

[mcanouil]

Quarto should use your "main" chromium-based version if it finds it.
If Quarto asked you to install chromium, it's because it did not find your browser for some reason specific to your environment.

You can see in the issue I have linked that for Quarto >1.6 the chromium that Quarto install won't work.

You can uninstall the version installed by Quarto. it won't hurt.

I suggest to read the other issue/thread I've linked which contains several things that I don't have the time right now to copy/paste:

• Transition to Chrome new headless mode #10532 this thread (unfortunately) continues elsewhere ...): How do I render and publish via Github actions using Chrome headless? #11966

[juliohm]

The quarto render --to pdf proceeds if I add

export QUARTO_CHROMIUM=/usr/bin/chromium
export QUARTO_CHROMIUM_HEADLESS_MODE=new

to my .bashrc

So there is no action to take on Quarto itself to improve the situation?

[juliohm]

Now I get another error related to a .gif file:

ERROR: 
compilation failed- error
LaTeX Error: Cannot determine size of graphic in images/juliahearts.gif (no BoundingBox).

See the LaTeX manual or LaTeX Companion for explanation.
Type  H <return>  for immediate help.
 ...                                              
                                                  
l.550 ...keepaspectratio]{images/juliahearts.gif}}

Should GIF be supported in PDF output?

[mcanouil]

I've linked the issues that track the "chromium" issues.

This issue appears to be a duplicate of them.

Regarding Gif, that's a completely different issue independent of Quarto.
Quarto does not control the abilities of the underlying language which in your case is LaTeX.
You can look at the log as suggested by the message and use keep-tex: true to investigate the LaTeX code.
I believe the solution can be found on the internet as it's likely faced by other LaTeX users in the last 20+ years.

[mcanouil]

Duplicate of #11877

[juliohm]

Please feel free to close the issue if it there is nothing to do regarding the chromium situation. Em sex., 7 de fev. de 2025, 13:43, Mickaël Canouil ***@***.***> escreveu:

…

I've linked the issues that track the "chromium" issues. This issue appears to be a duplicate of them. Regarding Gif, that's a completely different issue independent of Quarto. Quarto does not control the abilities of the underlying language which in your case is LaTeX. You can look at the log as suggested by the message and use keep-tex: true to investigate the LaTeX code. I believe the solution can be found on the internet as it's likely faced by other LaTeX users in the last 20+ years. — Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub <#12038 (comment)>, or unsubscribe <https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AAZQW3IQP3J5O6SZ22XNOLD2OTPCZAVCNFSM6AAAAABWUKDK7OVHI2DSMVQWIX3LMV43OSLTON2WKQ3PNVWWK3TUHMZDMNBTGQ2DMNBZHE> . You are receiving this because you were mentioned.Message ID: ***@***.***>

[mcanouil]

Please feel free to close the issue if it there is nothing to do regarding
the chromium situation.

There is something to be done to be clear but it's being tracked in other issues already.

[mcanouil]

Regarding your other issue, if really you don't find the LaTeX solution to include Gif, you can open a GitHub Discussion with a small reproducible example (not the whole project).
Something like:

---
format: pdf
---

![whatever](path/to/image.giff)