QNR stuck on Windows with engine=julia #329
Description
I'm (finally) opening an issue to follow up on this discussion. Specifically, this notebook causes QNR to hang on Windows:
---
title: Test
engine: julia
---
```{julia}
using Pkg
Pkg.activate("testenv")
Pkg.add("PlotlyLight")
Pkg.add("PlotlyKaleido")
using PlotlyLight
using PlotlyKaleido
PlotlyKaleido.start()
```The specific julia packages being added to the environment and the commands that follow the using statements seem to be somewhat irrelevant; QNR is stuck forever on the line using Pkg (which imports the julia package manager). I have observed the same behavior when adding other packages to the environment.
The relevant part of the discussion begins here.
I have set up a repository with CI to illustrate the failure: https://github.com/dpo/quarto-julia-failure
On linux and macOS, Quarto renders the notebook correctly in a couple of minutes, but it hangs on Windows and the job is cancelled after about 6 hours: https://github.com/dpo/quarto-julia-failure/actions/runs/16993939055
Here is some context on my use case. I use Quarto in the classroom as I find it significantly more versatile and powerful than other types of notebook (e.g., Jupyter or Pluto). The main strength of Quarto that I find crucial for teaching and research purposes is reproducibility: by including all relevant julia commands in the qmd (including creation of the environment and addition of relevant packages), students can submit their qmd and I can have CI run it automatically, and produce a PDF in which I can validate their results.
I like to render to PDF because they are easy to annotate (e.g., on a tablet), so grading doesn't require me to sift through the qmd directly. By contrast, converting Jupyter/Pluto notebooks to PDF is awkward and the result is mostly awful to work with, especially when LaTeX is involved.
In the discussion, one possible solution that was suggested is to create the environment outside the qmd file. I find that that would be vastly inferior to having everything included in a single file.
The Windows version may matter. In the discussion, this qmd file fails to render on Windows, but it rendered without error on CI.
Since I haven't experienced any failure on linux or macOS, I hope that this is nothing more than a Windows-related bug that can be fixed. I am happy to provide more information as needed and to help in any way I can. I hope to be able to continue to use Quarto in this way in every course I teach. As it happens, most students I encounter tend to use Windows.
Thank you for a great tool!