Quarto Book Publication Error to Posit Cloud: "R version was not provided" (Using Positron/renv)

Positron
,
1

Hello everyone,

I am attempting to publish a Quarto Book project from Positron to Posit Connect Cloud using the integrated Posit Publisher tool, but I am consistently running into the following error, despite taking several steps to explicitly define the R version:

2025-12-10T21:33:09+07:00 Failed to publish content: R version was not provided. You might be missing platform in the manifest. error_id=99fe5515-e2a5-4417-a48e-4991b884495b

(Note: I understand the timestamp and ID will be different, but the core error message remains the same.)

Project Details & Environment:

  • IDE: Positron
  • Target: Posit Connect Cloud
  • Content Type: Quarto Book (containing R code chunks: {r})
  • R Version: 4.5.2
  • Dependency Management: renv (The renv.lock file is present in the project root.)

And of course I tried to preview using quarto preview and the book rendered without any error.

Steps Taken (Troubleshooting Done So Far):

I have attempted the following configuration changes to explicitly provide the R version, but the error persists:

  1. **Added platform: r: '4.5.2' to _quarto.yml:
# _quarto.yml
project: 
  type: book
  output-dir: docs
  preview: 
    port: 4206
    browser: false
platform: # I don't know if this required, suggested by Gemini
   r: '4.5.2'

  1. Manually created rsconnect/r-version.json:
    I created the file at the project root with the content: { "version": "4.5.2" }

  2. Added a minimal DESCRIPTION file:
    I added a DESCRIPTION file in the root directory to force recognition as an R project.

  3. Activate and deactivate the renv
    I tried to deactivate then restart session and publish -> still error, activate again then restart session and publish -> still error.

  4. Success with Publish from GitHub
    After added manifest.json file and use Publish from GitHub the book published successfully.

After performing each step (1 to 4) and restarting the session, the publication still fails with the same "R version was not provided" error. It seems the Posit Publisher is completely ignoring all explicit R version metadata provided in the project manifest creation step.

Has anyone encountered this specific issue when publishing a Quarto Book with renv from Positron to Posit Connect Cloud? Are there any hidden configuration files or Positron settings that might be overriding the R version detection?

Thank you for any insight you can provide!

2

Hi Aep,

Sorry to hear you ran into these issues. Could you please confirm which version of the Posit Publisher extension you are using?

Thanks,

Alex

3

We believe this may have been related to our ability to support R 4.5.2. The team just pushed an update to address it.

Please try the deployment again and let us know if succeeds. Thanks!

4

Hi @alex_chisholm,

I've tried both Release (1.26.0) and pre-release (1.27.6) version. I laso tried R 4.5.1 and 4.5.2 with both extension version. Of course renv updated too. The result is still failed with same error.

5

Thanks for checking, Aep.

You should not need to define the R version anywhere during this process. When you say you deactivated the renv (Step 4), can you explain a bit more about what you mean?

I'm curious if your project had no renv.lock or manifest file, if the Publisher extension would pick up what it needs as expected.

Also, I'm glad to hear it works from Github directly. Is that a public repo? If so, please share the link and we can do some more testing.

6

Hello Alex, thanks for following up. I'll clarify the steps I took regarding renv.

First, I initialized renv in the project, which involved:

  • Running renv::init() (to create renv.lock and .Rprofile).
  • Then, running renv::activate().

When I said I "deactivated" renv in Step 4, I mean that I ran the function renv::deactivate().

Crucially, even after running renv::deactivate(), the renv.lock file and the .Rprofile remained in the project folder. I then ran renv::activate() again to re-enable the environment.

Regarding the repository,

The original repository I intended to publish is private on GitHub. However, before my publication attempt from GitHub, the repository was temporarily changed to public and then reverted back to private.

For further testing and replication, I have created a public dummy repository that mirrors the setup: https://github.com/aephidayatuloh/PositPublisherChecks
This repository mostly same with my private repository. The differences only content of .qmd files.