Can't render page on fresh installation "The filename, directory name, or volume label syntax is incorrect."

[josephbadow]

I wanted to give this theme a spin and ran straight into an error. To make sure it's not my hugo setup I started from scratch in a different folder, but ran into the same issue.

1. cd into C:\Users\Joseph\Gitlab
2. hugo new site test-poison
3. git clone https://github.com/lukeorth/poison.git themes/poison --depth=1
4. Copy example config from https://poison.lukeorth.com/posts/introducing-poison/#example-config into hugo.toml
5. hugo serve

Watching for changes in C:\Users\Joseph\Gitlab\test-poison\{archetypes,assets,content,data,i18n,layouts,static,themes}
Watching for config changes in C:\Users\Joseph\Gitlab\test-poison\hugo.toml, C:\Users\Joseph\Gitlab\test-poison\themes\poison\config.toml
Start building sites …
hugo v0.121.2-6d5b44305eaa9d0a157946492a6f319da38de154+extended windows/amd64 BuildDate=2024-01-05T12:21:15Z VendorInfo=gohugoio

ERROR render of "taxonomy" failed: "C:\Users\Joseph\Gitlab\test-poison\themes\poison\layouts\_default\baseof.html:1:3": execute of template failed: template: _default/list.html:1:3: executing "_default/list.html" at <partial "head/head.html" .>: error calling partial: "C:\Users\Joseph\Gitlab\test-poison\themes\poison\layouts\partials\head\head.html:16:7": execute of template failed: template: partials/head/head.html:16:7: executing "partials/head/head.html" at <partial "head/meta.html" .>: error calling partial: "C:\Users\Joseph\Gitlab\test-poison\themes\poison\layouts\partials\head\meta.html:31:6": execute of template failed: template: partials/head/meta.html:31:6: executing "partials/head/meta.html" at <fileExists $image_path_local>: error calling fileExists: CreateFile C:\Users\Joseph\Gitlab\test-poison\assets\%!!(MISSING)s(<nil>): The filename, directory name, or volume label syntax is incorrect.
ERROR render of "home" failed: "C:\Users\Joseph\Gitlab\test-poison\themes\poison\layouts\_default\baseof.html:1:3": execute of template failed: template: index.html:1:3: executing "index.html" at <partial "head/head.html" .>: error calling partial: "C:\Users\Joseph\Gitlab\test-poison\themes\poison\layouts\partials\head\head.html:16:7": execute of template failed: template: partials/head/head.html:16:7: executing "partials/head/head.html" at <partial "head/meta.html" .>: error calling partial: "C:\Users\Joseph\Gitlab\test-poison\themes\poison\layouts\partials\head\meta.html:31:6": execute of template failed: template: partials/head/meta.html:31:6: executing "partials/head/meta.html" at <fileExists $image_path_local>: error calling fileExists: CreateFile C:\Users\Joseph\Gitlab\test-poison\assets\%!!(MISSING)s(<nil>): The filename, directory name, or volume label syntax is incorrect.
Built in 73 ms
Error: error building site: render: failed to render pages: render of "taxonomy" failed: "C:\Users\Joseph\Gitlab\test-poison\themes\poison\layouts\_default\baseof.html:1:3": execute of template failed: template: _default/list.html:1:3: executing "_default/list.html" at <partial "head/head.html" .>: error calling partial: "C:\Users\Joseph\Gitlab\test-poison\themes\poison\layouts\partials\head\head.html:16:7": execute of template failed: template: partials/head/head.html:16:7: executing "partials/head/head.html" at <partial "head/meta.html" .>: error calling partial: "C:\Users\Joseph\Gitlab\test-poison\themes\poison\layouts\partials\head\meta.html:31:6": execute of template failed: template: partials/head/meta.html:31:6: executing "partials/head/meta.html" at <fileExists $image_path_local>: error calling fileExists: CreateFile C:\Users\Joseph\Gitlab\test-poison\assets\%!s(<nil>): The filename, directory name, or volume label syntax is incorrect.

I have a feeling that this could be a issue with windows path using \ instead of / on unix systems. Maybe it's also related to #148.

[josephbadow]

Upon further inspection it seems that line 29 on partials/head/meta.html is causing trouble.

{{ $image_path_local :=  printf "assets/%s" $image_path -}}

It generates filepath like this

ERROR render of "taxonomy" failed [...] assets\%!!(MISSING)s(<nil>)
ERROR render of "home" failed [...] assets\%!!(MISSING)s(<nil>)
Error: error building site: render: failed to render pages: render of "taxonomy" failed [...] assets\%!s(<nil>)

But I have no idea how to write Hugo themes so maybe I'm completely on the wrong track 😅

(Just to be sure I also created a new post and set draft to false.)

[josephbadow]

Just for reference, I installed Hugo into WSL (Ubuntu 22.04) and started it from the same folder:

/mnt/c/Users/Joseph/Gitlab/blog.bdw.li$ hugo serve
Watching for changes in /mnt/c/Users/Joseph/Gitlab/blog.bdw.li/{archetypes,assets,content,static,themes}
Watching for config changes in /mnt/c/Users/Joseph/Gitlab/blog.bdw.li/hugo.toml, /mnt/c/Users/Joseph/Gitlab/blog.bdw.li/themes/poison/config.toml
Start building sites …
hugo v0.121.2-6d5b44305eaa9d0a157946492a6f319da38de154+extended linux/amd64 BuildDate=2024-01-05T12:21:15Z VendorInfo=snap:0.121.2


                   | EN
-------------------+------
  Pages            | 136
  Paginator pages  |  12
  Non-page files   |   0
  Static files     | 367
  Processed images |   0
  Aliases          |   2
  Sitemaps         |   1
  Cleaned          |   0

Built in 7524 ms
Environment: "development"
Serving pages from memory
Running in Fast Render Mode. For full rebuilds on change: hugo server --disableFastRender
Web Server is available at //localhost:1313/ (bind address 127.0.0.1)
Press Ctrl+C to stop

As you can see, no issues at all.

[istern]

You can also try and og_image to the default params section worked for me change to mathcing image for you
[params]
og_image = "tn.jpg"

[dbdness]

I experienced the same on my Windows PC, and this theme is simply too good to skip, so I dived into the issue today and found the fix. I have opened a PR here: #181.

Simplest workaround until the PR is merged: Remove the comment and provide any (non-empty) value for og_image in hugo.toml/config.toml, as @istern also mentioned. Preferably a proper social icon, but the following will also fix the build:

og_image = "n/a"

Full explanation: This is definitely the same error as described in #148, and the problem is that the meta.html partial performs a fileExists call on the $image_path_local := printf "assets/%s" $image_path -}} variable, where $image_path is defined as
{{ $image_path := .Params.image | default .Site.Params.og_image -}}.

Since the example config.toml comments out the og_image = "" param and there are no global front matter fields with key image, the image_path_local variable defaults to the following file path string: "\assets\%!s(<nil>)".

Since this path is illegal on Windows due to the percent sign, but not on Unix-based systems, only Windows users experience this error on build.