Package minted Error: Missing Pygments output

Question

I installed minted today as well as Python and Pygments, which I can run from the cmd. When I try this code:

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{minted}
\begin{document}
\begin{minted}{c}
int main() {
printf("hello, world"); 
return 0;
}
\end{minted}
\end{document}

I get the following error message:

! Package minted Error: Missing Pygments output; \inputminted was
probably given a file that does not exist--otherwise, you may need the
outputdir package option, or may be using an incompatible build tool,
or may be using frozencache with a missing file.

See the minted package documentation for explanation.
Type H for immediate help.
...
\end{minted}

The other threads didn't help me and neither did Google. How do I solve this problem? I have set my option in pdfLatex to:

pdflatex -synctex=1 -interaction=nonstopmode --shell-escape %filename.tex 

Here is my log file.

My PATH is set so I can execute Python and pygmentize from the cmd without errors, and I can load the package as well. When it comes to using the minted package is when I receive the error.

Answer 1

For me this was due to two seperate problems: I didn't have enough privileges to run pygmentize, and I specified an -aux-directory argument to pdflatex without telling minted to look for the output file there. I had to fix both problems for it to work.

Insufficient privileges to run pygmentize

One of the problems was that for some reason I didn't have sufficient permissions to run pygmentize. To solve this on Windows, follow these steps:

1. Go to the folder containing pygmentize.exe in Windows Explorer (for me it's C:\ProgramData\Anaconda3\Scripts\pygmentize.exe). If you don't know what folder that is, you can find it by running where pygmentize.exe in cmd.exe (if that command gives you an error you need to set up pygmentize as explained here).

2. Right click on pygmentize.exe, then click on Properties > Security > Advanced > Continue:

   

   (Sorry that it's in Swedish, but the buttons should be in the same place in any language. "Säkerhet" means "Security", "Avancerat" means "Advanced" and "Fortsätt" means "Continue".)

3. Next, click on Add > Choose a main account:

   

   ("Lägg till" means "Add", "Välj ett huvudkonto" means "Choose a main account")

4. In the text box, type "Users" in your system language (so if your system is in English type "Users", if it's in Swedish type "Användare", if it's in French type "Utilisateurs", etc). Then click on "Control Name", then "OK".

   If it complains that what you typed is invalid, you can go to Advanced > Search Now to see a list of valid options, there should be something in there that means "Users". Alternatively, if you only need it to work for your user account, you can also type your Windows username.

5. Check the checkboxes "Read" and "Read and Execute", and make sure "Allow" is selected under "Type":

   

   ("Läsa" means "read", "köra" means "execute", "Typ" means "Type" and "Tillåt" means "Allow")

6. Click OK on each window you've opened.

-aux-directory in pdflatex

If you've specified an -aux-directory argument to pdflatex (which you can do in TeXstudio by going to Settings > Configure TeXstudio > Commands > PdfLaTeX), you need to explicitly specify that as ouptupdir to the minted package. For example, I use -aux-directory=C:/Users/myname/AppData/Local/Temp, so I needed to do \usepackage[outputdir=C:/Users/myname/AppData/Local/Temp]{minted} insead of just \usepackage{minted}.

In general the outputdir should be the one where Latex puts auxiliary files, in this case the file that's interesting is the .pygtex file. If you haven't specified an -aux-directory the default should be your current working directory in both cases so you shouldn't need to do anything, but if it still doesn't work you might need to search for where it put the .pygtex file and specify that as outputdir.

Answer 2

Your codes are working fine for me, I've tried the following commands I used the DOS prompt to get the output, hope --shell-escape is the solution for your problem, but not sure, please try at your end:

latex --shell-escape %filename.tex to get the output as in DVI format

pdflatex --shell-escape %filename.tex to get the output as in PDF format

and the output was generated as:

Answer 3

I had properly used -shell-escape and installed Pygments. I was still getting the error.

The reason was I was using \begin{minted}{txt} and not \begin{minted}{text}.

Make sure you are using a Pygments supported language. (There is only a short name entry for text not txt.)