Quarto does not start from the command line or in RStudio

[nathant181]

I have:

• searched the issue tracker for similar issues
• installed the latest version of Quarto CLI
• formatted my issue following the Bug Reports guide

Bug description

Any attempt to run Quarto from either the command line or within an IDE such as RStudio or VSCode fails silently following an update to R 4.5.3 and RStudio 2016.1.1 Build 403 on a remote desktop environment running Windows Server 2016 Standard Edition. I've tried both the quarto.exe application bundled with RStudio and the latest Windows zip file downloaded from quarto.org (1.9.36). Was working fine for a couple of years prior to the update (though that may not be the cause).

I've added reproduction steps below for command-line usage, but similar results are observed when using within an IDE - trying to render an existing qmd document fails with no error message, and trying to create a new qmd file (e.g. File > New File > Quarto Document in RStudio) produces an error window with the message "system error 127 (The specified procedure could not be found".

I also tried in VSCode with the Quarto VSCode extension, and an error message there said something about conpty.dll and Winpty.dll being removed or not available, but I'm not sure whether that's relevant.

I don't have admin privileges for the remote desktop so can't install applications, but if anyone could provide any clues to go back to our third-party sysadmins with that would be much appreciated!

Steps to reproduce

1. Open PowerShell
2. Navigate to the folder containing the quarto.exe binary (e.g. "C:\Program Files\RStudio\resources\app\bin\quarto\bin")
3. Run ".\quarto.exe check"

Actual behavior

Nothing - PowerShell pauses, leaves a blank line, then drops back to the command prompt.

Expected behavior

The output of the check command should be printed (or at least some error message saying what went wrong)

Your environment

• RStudio 2026.01.1 Build 403
• Quarto 1.8.25 (bundled), 1.9.36
• Windows Server 2016 Standard

Quarto check output

Not available - see above

[cderv]

Thanks for the report. This is quite puzzling.

Does quarto --version returns ?
Does it works outside of RStudio Terminal ? In windows terminal ?
Does it works on CMD and not powershell ?

quarto.exe is an executable we build and should be working on all windows plateforme.

You could also try opt in debug logging : https://quarto.org/docs/troubleshooting/#verbose-mode

$env:QUARTO_LOG_LEVEL="DEBUG"
$env:QUARTO_LOG="test.log"
quarto check

Or using CLI flag.

Thanks for your help providing more information. Currently quarto.exe works for me on windows without trouble so I can reproduce in my environment.

By the way, is previous v1.8 version working ?

[nathant181]

Yes, it puzzles me too! No parameter passed to `quarto` returns anything - not `quarto check`, not `quarto --version` or `quarto --help`, not anything. I tried it both in the RStudio terminal and in a separate PowerShell instance, with the same (non-) result. I'll try it on CMD tomorrow when I'm back at work. Quarto is not on my $PATH, and I'm not sure I'm able to set environment variables on the remote platform - I'm just running the .exe using `.\`. will I still be able to enable debug logging? Were there any recent changes to quarto or its upstream components that might have affected its functioning on a Windows Server 2016 remote desktop? Everything works fine on my own local machine running Windows 11. Thanks, Nathan

…

On Mar 31, 2026, 18:06 +0100, Christophe Dervieux ***@***.***>, wrote: cderv left a comment (quarto-dev/quarto-cli#14291) Thanks for the report. This is quite puzzling. Does quarto --version returns ? Does it works outside of RStudio Terminal ? In windows terminal ? Does it works on CMD and not powershell ? quarto.exe is an executable we build and should be working on all windows plateforme. You could also try opt in debug logging : https://quarto.org/docs/troubleshooting/#verbose-mode $env:QUARTO_LOG_LEVEL="DEBUG" $env:QUARTO_LOG="test.log" quarto check Or using CLI flag. Thanks for your help providing more information. Currently quarto.exe works for me on windows without trouble so I can reproduce in my environment. Is quarto 1.8.25 working ? — Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub, or unsubscribe. You are receiving this because you authored the thread.Message ID: ***@***.***>

[nathant181]

Ok I tried running quarto 1.9.36 from the Windows zipped download using CMD and got a more informative error message:

“deno.exe - Entry Point Not Found

The procedure entry point IsWow64Process2 could not be located in the dynamic link library <path\to\quarto-1.9.36-win\bin\tools\x86_64\deno.exe.”

[nathant181]

Update: I was able to run quarto 1.7.34 from the command line successfully. I copied and pasted the deno.exe file from the 1.7.34 folder to the same location in the 1.9.36 folder, and was able to run quarto check using 1.9.36. However, I then got the following error message:

“ERROR: Error executing ‘\quarto-1.9.36-win\bin\tools\pandox’: Assertion failed.”

followed by a stack trace.

So it looks like it might be an issue with the version of deno distributed with quarto > 1.7?

[mcanouil]

@nathant181 Do you have the exact Windows server version?
Deno 2 requires Windows Server 2016 version 1709 (or later) due to requiring iswow64process2.