quarto preview does not work but quarto render works fine.

[padpadpadpad]

Description

I am writing some quarto documents at the moment and quarto preview was working fine, but is now breaking with the following error:

ERROR: No output created by quarto render breseq.qmd

Stack trace:
    at handleRenderResult (file:///Applications/quarto/bin/quarto.js:92852:15)
    at renderForPreview (file:///Applications/quarto/bin/quarto.js:92868:25)
    at eventLoopTick (ext:core/01_core.js:175:7)
    at async render (file:///Applications/quarto/bin/quarto.js:92741:29)
    at async preview (file:///Applications/quarto/bin/quarto.js:92752:21)
    at async Command.actionHandler (file:///Applications/quarto/bin/quarto.js:109437:9)
    at async Command.execute (file:///Applications/quarto/bin/quarto.js:8253:13)
    at async Command.parseCommand (file:///Applications/quarto/bin/quarto.js:8143:20)
    at async quarto (file:///Applications/quarto/bin/quarto.js:133948:9)
    at async file:///Applications/quarto/bin/quarto.js:133978:9

Weirdly quarto render of the same document works fine. File is attached. Is there something I am missing/doing wrong in my YAML header?

I am using Positron and quarto 1.7.32 on MacOS 15.4.1.

breseq.qmd.zip

[mcanouil]

Could you share your example as plain text? Ensure it is small and reproducible.

---

You can share a self-contained "working" (reproducible) Quarto document using the following syntax, i.e., using more backticks than you have in your document (usually four ````).
See https://quarto.org/bug-reports.html#small-is-beautiful-aim-for-a-single-document-with-10-lines.

If you have multiple files (and if it is absolutely required to have multiple files), please share as a Git repository.

R	Python
````qmd --- title: "Reproducible Quarto Document" format: html engine: knitr --- This is a reproducible Quarto document. {{< lipsum 1 >}} ```{r} x <- c(1, 2, 3, 4, 5) y <- c(1, 4, 9, 16, 25) plot(x, y) ``` {#fig-placeholder} {{< lipsum 1 >}} The end after @fig-placeholder. ````	````qmd --- title: "Reproducible Quarto Document" format: html engine: jupyter --- This is a reproducible Quarto document. {{< lipsum 1 >}} ```{python} import matplotlib.pyplot as plt x = [1, 2, 3, 4, 5] y = [1, 4, 9, 16, 25] plt.plot(x, y) plt.show() ``` {#fig-placeholder} {{< lipsum 1 >}} The end after @fig-placeholder. ````

Additionally and if not already given, please share the output of quarto check within a code block (i.e., using three backticks ```txt), see https://quarto.org/bug-reports.html#check.

[padpadpadpad]

I can! On my machine this example gives an error:

ERROR: No output created by quarto render example.qmd

Stack trace:
    at handleRenderResult (file:///Applications/quarto/bin/quarto.js:92852:15)
    at renderForPreview (file:///Applications/quarto/bin/quarto.js:92868:25)
    at eventLoopTick (ext:core/01_core.js:175:7)
    at async render (file:///Applications/quarto/bin/quarto.js:92741:29)
    at async preview (file:///Applications/quarto/bin/quarto.js:92752:21)
    at async Command.actionHandler (file:///Applications/quarto/bin/quarto.js:109437:9)
    at async Command.execute (file:///Applications/quarto/bin/quarto.js:8253:13)
    at async Command.parseCommand (file:///Applications/quarto/bin/quarto.js:8143:20)
    at async quarto (file:///Applications/quarto/bin/quarto.js:133948:9)
    at async file:///Applications/quarto/bin/quarto.js:133978:9

---
title: Calling genetic variants with **breseq**
description: Describe what the protocol does here.
author: Daniel Padfield
date: 10 07 2025
date-modified: "`r format(Sys.time(), '%d %B %Y')`"
date-format: long
categories: 
  - computational
format:
  html:
    toc: true
    toc-depth: 5
    code-overflow: wrap
    standalone: true
    embed-resources: true
---

# Outline

Quarto 1.7.32
[✓] Checking environment information...
      Quarto cache location: /Users/dp415/Library/Caches/quarto
[✓] Checking versions of quarto binary dependencies...
      Pandoc version 3.6.3: OK
      Dart Sass version 1.85.1: OK
      Deno version 1.46.3: OK
      Typst version 0.13.0: OK
[✓] Checking versions of quarto dependencies......OK
[✓] Checking Quarto installation......OK
      Version: 1.7.32
      Path: /Applications/quarto/bin

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

[✓] Checking LaTeX....................OK
      Using: Installation From Path
      Path: /Library/TeX/texbin
      Version: 2025

[✓] Checking Chrome Headless....................OK
      Using: Chrome found on system
      Path: /Applications/Google Chrome.app/Contents/MacOS/Google Chrome
      Source: MacOS known location

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

[✓] Checking Python 3 installation....OK
      Version: 3.12.9
      Path: /opt/homebrew/opt/[email protected]/bin/python3.12
      Jupyter: (None)

      Jupyter is not available in this Python installation.
      Install with python3 -m pip install jupyter

[✓] Checking R installation...........OK
      Version: 4.5.1
      Path: /Library/Frameworks/R.framework/Resources
      LibPaths:
        - /Library/Frameworks/R.framework/Versions/4.5-arm64/Resources/library
      knitr: 1.50
      rmarkdown: 2.29

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

[mcanouil]

Note necessarily the cause, but still an issue:

• See the documentation on date: https://quarto.org/docs/reference/dates.html

date: 10 07 2025
date-modified: "`r format(Sys.time(), '%d %B %Y')`"

The short version is: you should never have inline R expression in YAML in Quarto.

In your case, use any of the keywords described in the documentation.

[padpadpadpad]

Good to know. This unfortunately did not solve the issue.

[mcanouil]

I cannot reproduce any issues with the code.

Be sure there is nothing else in your environment such as _quarto.yml, etc. and that your example is fully reproducible by trying it elsewhere on your computer.

[padpadpadpad]

Ah I have a post-render script which moves some files around into a different folder. This was it. Is there any way to turn this off for preview but not for render?

[mcanouil]

Use different profiles: https://quarto.org/docs/projects/profiles.html

[cderv]

Ah I have a post-render script which moves some files around into a different folder. This was it.

About this issue, this is tracked at

• Support modifying output files names in post render script #12987