rstudio / rstudio/rstudio

Quarto Preview launched from RStudio uses --no-watch-inputs, preventing live reload on Ubuntu 24.04

Open
#18,339 2 comments 0 reactions 0 assignees View on GitHub
enhancement quarto
Dominant language
Java
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5.1k
Forks
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PR merge metrics
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Description

```bash
username@XXX:~$ rstudio --version
2026.07.1+147
username@XXX:~$ /usr/lib/rstudio/resources/app/bin/quarto/bin/quarto --version
1.9.38
```

OS:
Ubuntu 24.04

Problem:
When launching Quarto Preview from RStudio, the background job starts:
`quarto preview doc.qmd --to html --no-watch-inputs --no-browse`
The preview opens successfully and shows: `Watching files for changes`
However, editing and saving the .qmd file does not trigger a re-render.

Expected behavior:
Saving the .qmd file should automatically re-render the preview.

Actual behavior:
No changes are detected until I manually render again (Ctrl+Shift+K).

Additional information:
Running the exact same Quarto executable manually works correctly:
`/usr/lib/rstudio/resources/app/bin/quarto/bin/quarto preview doc.qmd `and in this case, live reload works as expected.

The issue also occurs with a minimal .qmd document.

Contributor guide

Open the contributing guide

Research direction

Start by reproducing the RStudio Quarto Preview command on Ubuntu 24.04 and comparing it with the manually run Quarto command. Search the RStudio Quarto Preview integration for where --no-watch-inputs is added; done means saving a .qmd file triggers an automatic re-render.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Assessment

Tech stack
ubuntu
Domain
tooling
Issue type
Bug
Difficulty
3/5
Estimated time
1-2 days
Activity status
Quiet
Clarity
Mostly clear
Newbie friendliness
65/100

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