I was able to commit and push to Github with only a single presentation in the main Project directory. When I put a single presentation in a subdirectory, it caused the Git tab to freeze.
I removed the offending directory and was able to commit and push a subdirectory with two large PDF files with no problems.
I put the offending directory (with a very simple Quarto presentation) in a different R Studio Project and it caused the same issue.
Does Quarto just not know how to play with Github? Seems like a bug, not a feature.
I did not attempt it from terminal, only from the R Studio IDE. Another user told me this is a long known issue with collections of html support files generally, though I never found any confirmation of that. He suggested using self contained format, but that doesnt produce the same end result as the .js format with separate navigable pages for each section.
Thanks. I am using the latesf R Studio and R versions. Someone from the Quarto team is actually looking at it. Sorry I may have lost track of who I was responding to.
Just because this question may end up in search results, the short term resolution is this:
Delete rendered results (html files and the extra subdirectory) before the Git commit/push, since rendering again is relatively easy.
A second option is to put that extra directory in the .gitignore file.