convert_file errors with QXcbConnection: Could not connect to display

[DandyDeveloper]

I'm not sure whether this dependance is coming from Pandoc directly or wkhtmltopdf. This is a tornado app.

I have wkhtmltopdf 0.12.2.4 and pandoc 1.19.2.1

This is the convert that is failing:

pypandoc.convert_file(markdown_file, "html5", outputfile=pdf_file, format="markdown_github", extra_args=["-c " + publish_css])

Exception:

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/home/usr/.local/lib/python2.7/site-packages/tornado/web.py", line 1509, in _execute
    result = method(*self.path_args, **self.path_kwargs)
  File "server.py", line 470, in post
    extra_args=["-c " + publish_css])
  File "/home/usr/.local/lib/python2.7/site-packages/pypandoc/__init__.py", line 140, in convert_file
    outputfile=outputfile, filters=filters)
  File "/home/usr/.local/lib/python2.7/site-packages/pypandoc/__init__.py", line 325, in _convert_input
    'Pandoc died with exitcode "%s" during conversion: %s' % (p.returncode, stderr)
RuntimeError: Pandoc died with exitcode "43" during conversion: QXcbConnection: Could not connect to display

I've tried running this with a display running Xvfb :0 & but its still failing. Any suggestions?

This seems more like a Pandoc problem though. Please close if you think this needs to be dealt with by Pandoc.

[jankatins]

This is not pypandoc failing, but pandoc itself. The error message sounds like it is something qt related, not sure what in pandoc used QT :-(

My first ideas would be to try setting the DISPLAY env variable to something which has an xserver (e.g. export DISPLAY=:0 or os.environ['DISPLAY'] = ':0'. The second I found in ariya/phantomjs#14376 : QT_QPA_PLATFORM=offscreen

[DandyDeveloper]

I actually think this is wkhtmltopdf 12.4 having the bug still. I'm trying to upgrade to 0.12.4

[DandyDeveloper]

I'll leave this here for visibility if anyone has this problem in future.

You'll need to use the latest binaries from wkhtmltopdf here: https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/192642/wkhtmltopdf-qxcbconnection-could-not-connect-to-display

I was using version 0.12.2. This is fixed in version 0.12.4.

Make sure to purge 0.12.2 if you've accidentally installed like I did!

[jankatins]

Thanks for posting the solution!