I have a similar issue with blogdown. It may be related to your problem. I am a Mac user and a newbie to blogdown.
Problem
blogdown:::serve_site()
Rendering content/post/2018-02-10-academic-kickstart.Rmd
Error: object 'CF.mb' not found
Execution halted
Error in render_page(f) :
Failed to render 'content/post/2018-02-10-academic-kickstart.Rmd'
Blogdown is attempting to call a file 'CF.md' that does not exist.
More information about my goals and problem can be seen at: