Installation problems on Mac

[robl01]

Preliminary questions

I tried to install Latex some months ago, but it did not work and I wanted to try again. By googling the issue, I got to a report but I could not understand the solutions (I am "just a mechanical engineer" with very few computer knowledge 🥲 )

Disable all the other extensions except for LaTeX Workshop, restart VS Code, and check that you still see this issue. [Required]

You still see this issue?: Yes

If your issue is with compiling a document (not having to do with finding the root file of a project), check first that you can compile manually.

The document is a sample document I found online. It should work :)

Describe the bug [Required]

I wanted to run the LaTeX script. By clicking on the "run button" in the top right corner in VSCode, I got this error:

Recipe terminated with fatal error: spawn latexmk ENOENT.

Logs [Required]

The Log message is the following:

[16:38:31] BUILD command invoked.
[16:38:31] The document of the active editor: file:///Users/robert/Desktop/Test.tex
[16:38:31] The languageId of the document: latex
[16:38:31] Current workspace folders: undefined
[16:38:31] Found root file from active editor: /Users/robert/Desktop/Test.tex
[16:38:31] Keep using the same root file: /Users/robert/Desktop/Test.tex
[16:38:31] Building root file: /Users/robert/Desktop/Test.tex
[16:38:31] Build root file /Users/robert/Desktop/Test.tex
[16:38:31] outDir: /Users/robert/Desktop
[16:38:31] Recipe step 1: latexmk
[16:38:31] Recipe step 1 args: ["-synctex=1","-interaction=nonstopmode","-file-line-error","-pdf","-outdir=/Users/robertblaszczyk/Desktop","/Users/robert/Desktop/Test"]
[16:38:31] Recipe step env: {}
[16:38:31] cwd: /Users/robert/Desktop
[16:38:31] LaTeX build process spawned. PID: undefined.
[16:38:31] LaTeX fatal error: spawn latexmk ENOENT, . PID: undefined.
[16:38:31] Does the executable exist? $PATH: /opt/homebrew/Caskroom/miniforge/base/bin:/opt/homebrew/Caskroom/miniforge/base/condabin:opt/homebrew/bin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/sbin:/opt/homebrew/bin:/opt/homebrew/bin
[16:38:31] Does the executable exist? $Path: undefined
[16:38:31] The environment variable $SHELL: /bin/zsh

Desktop [Required]

Please write exact version numbers. Please don't write latest instead of exact numbers.

• OS: Mac OS 12.2.1
• VS Code version: 1.71.0
• Extension version: 8.29.0
• TeX distribution version: Here I am not sure: I downloaded MacTex a while ago, but it did not work properly. This may be the issue I cannot fix.

If you need any additional information let me know, I will try to provide them. Thank you already in advance for your help

[we-taper]

I am having a similar issue as well. In my case, that the environment variable PATH loaded by this extension is different from the PATH loaded by vscode. In vscode's terminal, it could load the PATH correctly and found the executable (in my case pdflatex), but inside LaTeX-Workshop, the PATH is different and does not include the right executables for latex.

Could you try which latexmk to find out where it is installed?

[James-Yu]

Could you try which latexmk to find out where it is installed?

No, this is not a viable solution, as in such case latexmk is not in PATH and cannot be found even which latexmked.

[we-taper]

Thanks @James-Yu for the prompt reply. Let me explain in more detail. I believe my PATH has been setup to include the right executables, but it is not properly respected when the extension tries to spawn processes.

Assuming the latex is installed via brew, which in my case setup the PATH properly. latexmk is inside the PATH and could be found by which latexmk, even in VSCode's terminal.

However, my LaTeX-Workshop extension still reports missing that executable. And the PATH report by LaTeX-Workshop is different from the PATH available from my terminal (whether inside or outside VSCode).

Since my the PATH setup by /usr/libexec/path_helper properly includes pdflatex, it could be that LaTeX-Workshop (or VSCode's extension in general? I am not sure) does not respect the path_helper mechanism in MacOS.

BTW, this issue #13701 in VSCode talks about setting up path_helper in the VSCode terminal. It is related but does not answer our problem.

[James-Yu]

It's VSCode. This extension does not and cannot change the shell env that VSCode resides. The extension can only read PATH from it.

[we-taper]

Thanks. I am asking VSCode to see if they can find out the reason here at microsoft/vscode#173480

[if-david]

Don't waste any more time—after trying at least 10 different solutions, the only one that works is installing the Full MacTeX...