Asymptote figures don't appear with vimtex

Question

I'm trying use the asymptote package with vimtex, it's the first time I try it. When I try to compile, the figure doesn't appear at all in the pdf. This is an example code I found to test:

\usepackage[inline]{asymptote} % I've also tried without [inline] but I get the same results
...
\begin{asy}
    settings.outformat = "pdf";
    defaultpen(fontsize(10pt));
    label("Hello world!");
\end{asy}

The only warning I get is

Package asymptote Warning: file `***-1.pdf' not found on input line 30.

The myfile-*.asy files do appear in the folder.

I found this issue in the vimtex github where they suggest using a latexmkrc file with

sub asy {return system("asy \"$_[0]\"");}
add_cus_dep("asy","eps",0,"asy");
add_cus_dep("asy","pdf",0,"asy");
add_cus_dep("asy","tex",0,"asy");

I tried putting this file in the folder I'm working on but it makes the vimtex compilation fail inmediately.

Update:

Running asy myfile-1.asy in the terminal returns this error:

no matching variable 'byteinv'
no matching variable '_schur'

To fix this I've manually updated to 2.85, because was using the MiKTeX version 2.81 which didn't work properly. Now it works if I run asy myfile-1.asy manually, but vimtex doesn't do it automatically.

Answer 1

The problem is the .asy files can't compile because apparently the MiKTeX distribution of Asymptote doesn't have compatible files and executable, as pointed out here. Instead, download and install Asymptote from here and copy the files from C:\Program Files\Asymptote (not sure if you need all the files but it works for me) into the same directory as the incompatible version (C:\Users\David\AppData\Local\Programs\MiKTeX\miktex\bin\x64 in my case) (there might be another way to use the correct executable without copying the files, but that's beyond my knowledge). I think you also need to rename the asy.exe file you copied to miktex-asy.exe.

Now you can compile the .asy files by executing them with the Asymptote program or in a terminal with asy myfile-*.asy.

Vimtex uses latexmk by default. In order to automatically compile the myfile-*.asy files when compiling with vimtex, you need to add a .latexmkrc file in the directory you're working on with the following:

sub asy {return system("asy \"$_[0]\"");}
add_cus_dep("asy","eps",0,"asy");
add_cus_dep("asy","pdf",0,"asy");
add_cus_dep("asy","tex",0,"asy");