Is it a bug that Quarto leaves old copies of files in the _site directory?

[davidleitch1]

Description

I now have 60+ copies of my about.html , 67 copies of index.html etc inside my _site directory. My standard modus operandi is to preview the site then publish every time I update. Almost certainly I need to do something differently, but it does seem to me Quarto might delete the old copies of files before creating new ones?

[mcanouil]

Could you share a small self-contained "working" (reproducible) example to work with, i.e., a complete Quarto document or a Git repository? The goal is to make it as easy as possible for us to recreate your problem so that we can fix it: please help us help you! Thanks.

---

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 blocks (i.e., using three backticks ```txt), see https://quarto.org/bug-reports.html#check.

[cderv]

i am happy to post the _quarto.yml if that assists?

I think this would. By any change is this site public and available online as a github repo ?

it should not happen. _site should be deleted at each new render. 🤔

[cscheid]

Quarto has no facilities for renaming the files like that. @davidleitch1 I think you're rendering into a network drive of some sort (Dropbox, etc) and multiple computers are "fighting" over the generated files.

[davidleitch1]

Hmm. I render, or at least preview and then publish to an iCloud directory. I have permissions to read and write but otherwise it's read only.

To be honest I am still learning in respect to the many things I now do from the Terminal that for 30 years prior I never worried about. Do I need to make the directory read and write for "everyone"? It is no trouble to do so as I am "everyone".

the site is publicly available www.itkservices3.com but at the time I started the project I wasn't using Github so the code is private. If time permits I may move it to Github although there is no rush.

As far as the Quarto YAML goes:

project:
  type: website
  resources: 
    - "sub_thanks.html"
website:
  title: "ITK Research" 
  description: "Electricity markets analysis"
  site-url: https://itkservices3.com
  search: True
  open-graph: true
  favicon: "ITK_logo.png"
  navbar:
    logo: "ITK_logo.png"
    background: teal
  
    left: 
      - text: "AEMO demand fcst"
        href: forecast.html
      - text: "NEM-dash"
        href: nem-dash.html
      - text: "IEA-electricity"
        href: IEA.html
      - text: "Articles"
        file: posts.qmd
      - text: "Presentations"
        file: presentations.qmd
     


    right:
      - icon: rss
        href: posts.xml
      - about.qmd
      - text: "Signup"
        file: mailchimp.html
    

  margin-header: ""
  page-footer:
    left: "Copyright 2024 ITK admin@itkservices.com.au "

format:
  html:
    theme: 
      dark: darkly
      light: cosmo
    mainfont: verdana
    fontsize: 1.1em
    linestretch: 1.7
    css: styles.css
    toc: true
    grid:
      sidebar-width: 500px
      body-width: 700px

[mcanouil]

Nothing suspicious in that project.

It's likely the result of concurrent writings which from several other reports are usually related to cloud drives.
In general, it's better to avoid working (generating multiple files at once) on a sync directory.
Even when it "works" the sync is wrong and has to be done again. So lot of performance issues and other weirdness.
Try to delete _site and render again in a directory not synced.

[davidleitch1]

I suspect that changing the permissions on the iCloud directory may fix the problem. I will report as solved once the website has been updated. Thanks for the assistance with this issue.