R markdown pdf presentation bullet points gone

[Murat_Tasdemir]

All of a sudden all the bullet points in my presentation are gone. This was working before. I could not figure out what is wrong with the following code (the dot at the end of the chunk does not existing by the way. It is for displaying it properly kere) :

---
title: Regression
subtitle: "İKT 533"
author: "Murat Taşdemir"
short-author: "MT"
institute: "İstanbul Medeniyet Üniversitesi"
short-inst: "İMÜ"
date: "`r format(Sys.time(), '%d %B %Y')`"
fontsize: 12pt
output: 
  beamer_presentation: 
    theme: Madrid
    latex_engine: xelatex
#classoption: "fleqn"
...

```{r setup, include=FALSE}
knitr::opts_chunk$set(echo = FALSE)
```.
## Bullets

 -  Item 1
 -  Item 2
 -  Item 3

My session info:

R version 3.5.3 (2019-03-11)
Platform: x86_64-apple-darwin15.6.0 (64-bit)
Running under: macOS  10.15.7

Matrix products: default
BLAS: /System/Library/Frameworks/Accelerate.framework/Versions/A/Frameworks/vecLib.framework/Versions/A/libBLAS.dylib
LAPACK: /Library/Frameworks/R.framework/Versions/3.5/Resources/lib/libRlapack.dylib

locale:
[1] tr_TR.UTF-8/tr_TR.UTF-8/tr_TR.UTF-8/C/tr_TR.UTF-8/tr_TR.UTF-8

attached base packages:
[1] stats     graphics  grDevices utils     datasets  methods   base     

loaded via a namespace (and not attached):
 [1] compiler_3.5.3  htmltools_0.4.0 tools_3.5.3     yaml_2.2.1      Rcpp_1.0.5      rmarkdown_2.0  
 [7] knitr_1.28      xfun_0.12       digest_0.6.25   packrat_0.5.0   rlang_0.4.7     evaluate_0.14  

Any idea?

[Murat_Tasdemir]

I think tinytex package has serious bugs. This is not the first time I run into strange behavior of this package. After I removed tinytex and start using TeXlive everything works as it should be.

[cderv]

Hi,

Can you explain why you think tinytex package as a bug here ? Have you found some details so that we can fix if necessary.

I am not sure to see where it could be inside tinytex. One of the thing the tinytex R is doing is providing a way to install a lightweight distribution based on TeX Live. (see TinyTeX - A lightweight, cross-platform, portable, and easy-to-maintain LaTeX distribution based on TeX Live - Yihui Xie | 谢益辉). It can work with another distribution too because the other thing it does is calling Latex from R when you render a Rmd document.

With your example, I get some bullet point showing if I remove the theme Madrid. The only difference in the .tex file is the line \usetheme[]{Madrid}: With this line, no bullet is shown, without this line there is some bullets showing. Could this be related to the theme and some versions of one of the tex package ?

Also, if I switch to pdflatex engine instead of xelatex, I got the bullet. i.e using this:

  beamer_presentation: 
    theme: Madrid
    latex_engine: pdflatex

This seem be something related to LaTeX configuration and not specifically TinyTeX.

@Murat_Tasdemir

After I removed tinytex and start using TeXlive everything works as it should be.

Which version of TeXLive did you install ? The one installed using TinyTeX is this one

$tlmgr --version
tlmgr revision 56566 (2020-10-06 05:40:54 +0200)
tlmgr using installation: C:/Users/chris/AppData/Roaming/TinyTeX
TeX Live (https://tug.org/texlive) version 2020

Is this working with xelatex and your TeX Live version ?

[Murat_Tasdemir]

I have been using TinyTeX for my markdown documents for a while, and I think it is a great package, especially for whose who do not want a whole TeX installation in their system. I had some other problem before, and had to reinstall TinyTeX because somethings had changed in one of the updates.

This time I have spent a whole day trying to fix it. It was working, and then a moment later not working.
I really have no idea what is going on here.

Can you explain why you think tinytex package as a bug here ? Have you found some details so that we can fix if necessary.

Because just after I uninstalled TinyTeX, it worked again.

I am not sure to see where it could be inside tinytex. One of the thing the tinytex R is doing is providing a way to install a lightweight distribution based on TeX Live. (see TinyTeX - A lightweight, cross-platform, portable, and easy-to-maintain LaTeX distribution based on TeX Live - Yihui Xie | 谢益辉). It can work with another distribution too because the other thing it does is calling Latex from R when you render a Rmd document.

This makes sense to me. But how are we going to explain the problem then? I have not changed anything else. Note that my TeXlive installation was not new. I mean, I installed it weeks before I had the issue. It was already installed on my system. So, I have not changed my TeXlive distribution either.

With your example, I get some bullet point showing if I remove the theme Madrid. The only difference in the .tex file is the line \usetheme[]{Madrid}: With this line, no bullet is shown, without this line there is some bullets showing. Could this be related to the theme and some versions of one of the tex package ?

As I said, the only change I made is to remove tinyTeX and go with (already installed) TeXlive. Are you suggesting that TinyTeX is using a different TeXlive version? Because the installed version was TeXlive 2020 with all the updates, since I use it for other pure LaTeX documents.

Also, if I switch to pdflatex engine instead of xelatex, I got the bullet. i.e using this:

  beamer_presentation: 
    theme: Madrid
    latex_engine: pdflatex

You are right. It prints bullet points when I switch to pdflatex. XeLaTeX compiling might be the source of the problem.

Which version of TeXLive did you install ? The one installed using TinyTeX is this one

TeXlive 2020.

I just want to say that between when TinyTeX was working and when stopped working, I have not touched my TeXlive installation in any way.

I also want to thank you for your inquiry of the issue.

[cderv]

It is possible that your TeX Live installation has been updated in the process of using it. tinytex will try to install missing packages when you render a document and it could also update tlmgr calling tlmgr update --self.

There are several release of tlmgr by year: https://www.tug.org/texlive/tlmgr-news.html

Also the packages used may have been updated too. By uninstalling TinyTeX and reinstalling TeX Live, you may have change some of the package version.

We won't really know for sure. Anyway, if a full TeX Live installation works for you, you don't need TinyTeX - the tinytex R will work with your existing installation.