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Search on the OTTR docs for what you are looking for. Note that first few entries are sponsored, the actually helpful stuff will be below that.

Most Common Errors

This guide will describe the most common OTTR errors and pitfalls and how to address them. When you open a pull request, you should see a report like this:

When you see an ❌ , click on the Details button to see the error message. We’ll discuss the most common error messages here.

file is not in PNG format: Google Slides permissions fail

Error example:

Error in png::readPNG(path, native = TRUE, info = TRUE) :
  file is not in PNG format
Calls: local ... lapply -> FUN -> raster_dpi_width -> attr -> <Anonymous>
Execution halted
Error in Rscript_render(f, render_args, render_meta, add1, add2) :
  Failed to compile <file_name>.Rmd
Calls: local ... <Anonymous> -> render_new_session -> Rscript_render
Execution halted
Error: bookdown::render_book() failed to render the output format 'bookdown::gitbook'.
Execution halted

What does this mean?:

Your Google Slides presentation you have tried to retrieve a slide from with ottrpal::include_slide() is not public. Your Google Slide document must be set to Anyone with a link. See this article for more details. The renders will fail if this is not set! See the setting up images and graphics section for more details.

Process completed with exit code 1.: Spell check/url check/quiz format fail:

Underneath a section that says something like: **Check spelling/url/quiz errors - fail if too many of them** you may see something like:

Run exit 1
  exit 1
  shell: sh -e {0}
Error: Process completed with exit code 1.

This is failing on purpose – it means that checker has found errors. Return to your pull request page and look for a comment that says something like:

⚠️ There are <spelling/quiz/url> errors that need to be addressed. Read this guide for more info.
Download the errors here.
Comment updated at <some_date> with changes from <commit>

Click on the Download the errors here to see the list of errors and which files they were found in. For help in addressing these errors, click on the Read this guide for more info button.

CONFLICT (modify/delete): Merge conflict fail:

Error example:

CONFLICT (modify/delete): <file_name> deleted in <branch_name> and modified in HEAD. Version HEAD of <file_name> left in tree.

This will often happen when render-preview’s git handling doesn’t know which changes you are looking to preview. The easiest way to fix this problem is to create a separate pull request that completely deletes the files lists. To do this, follow these steps:

  1. Take note of your pull request’s number. Go to the pull request page and see what #number is posted there.
  2. On your GitHub repository, go to Code and click on Branches.
  3. Your pull request’s preview is made on a branch named preview-<number of your pull request>. Find this branch and click the trash can icon. This will delete the preview branch and hopefully get rid of this error. Read this for more info on how to delete a branch.
  4. Re-trigger your GitHub actions run and it should pass.

Parser error: while parsing a flow sequence: _bookdown.yml parse error

If you see an error like this:

Run Rscript -e "bookdown::render_book('index.Rmd', output_format = 'all')"
Error in yaml::yaml.load(..., eval.expr = TRUE) :
  Parser error: while parsing a flow sequence at line 4, column 12 did not find expected ',' or ']' at line 11, column 13
Calls: <Anonymous> ... <Anonymous> -> resolve -> <Anonymous> -> yaml_load -> <Anonymous>
Execution halted
Error: Process completed with exit code 1.

It means that the formatting in your _bookdown.yml is off. If you forget a comma, or quote, or a ] this message will appear in the github actions preview run.

Take a careful look at the _bookdown.yml. Keep in mind that _bookdown.yml rmd_files spec should look like this (indents, quotes, and commas included in this pattern):

rmd_files: ["index.Rmd",
            "01-intro.Rmd",
            "02-chapter_of_course.Rmd",
            "new_file.Rmd",
            "About.Rmd",
            "References.Rmd"]

Commit the changes to your _bookdown.yml and see if the preview GitHub action runs appropriately.

Error in if (title == x2) return(head) : the condition has length > 1: Run bookdown render error

If you observe an error like this:

Error in if (title == x2) return(head) : the condition has length > 1
Calls: <Anonymous> ... split_chapters -> build -> sub -> is.factor -> prepend_chapter_title
Execution halted
Error: Process completed with exit code 1.

Then look at the GA_Script.Rhtml file and remove the following html frontmatter if it’s present:

(at the beginning of the file)

  <html>

  <head>
  <title>Title</title>
  </head>

  <body>

(at the end of the file)

  </body>
  </html>

Content not rendering

Check that the config file is up-to-date. It should look like this: https://github.com/jhudsl/OTTR_Template/blob/main/config_automation.yml. (be careful to keep your selections for the configuration you would like).

Contact Info

If you have a question that’s not addressed by this website or just wanna chat with us about something else, please email us at OR you can leave a GitHub issue here.

We greatly appreciate any feedback! We are always looking for ways to improve OTTR so more open source courses can be made!


Your feedback is greatly appreciated! You can fill out this form
or file a GitHub issue.

Otter images by Jimin Hwang.