Knit2pdf works locally but not on shinyapp.io server

[Shuai Ni]

I have an app (peppro.org) that generates a pdf report after the user has analysed his/her data. knit2pdf() works fine in my laptop but I can't get it to work as long as when I upload it to the shinyapp.io server. It looks like "myPDF.rnw" can be converted to "myPDF.tex", but there's some issues converting from "myPDF.tex" to "myPDF.pdf".

However, if I simply comment out everything in "myPDF.rnw", making it an empty PDF with only some plane text, I'm able to generate the pdf again on shinyapp.io. I'm not sure where the problem is. The main error message I get from the shinyapp log is this:

 "Warning: Error in : Failed to compile makePDF.tex. See makePDF.log for more info.".

It is said in another post that reactive values are not allowed in .Rnw files, but I've seen Yihui's example where he printed two input$*** in the pdf. So I don't think that is the reason.

Any ideas will be more than welcome!

The whole error message looks like below:

'''
label: session
2018-03-12T12:42:33.546948+00:00 shinyapps[258280]:
|
|.................................................................| 100%
2018-03-12T12:42:33.547001+00:00 shinyapps[258280]: ordinary text without R code
2018-03-12T12:42:33.547003+00:00 shinyapps[258280]:
2018-03-12T12:42:33.548498+00:00 shinyapps[258280]:
2018-03-12T12:42:33.549401+00:00 shinyapps[258280]: output file: makePDF.tex
2018-03-12T12:42:33.549403+00:00 shinyapps[258280]:
2018-03-12T12:42:33.946037+00:00 shinyapps[258280]: \endMakeFramed ...eight \z@ \penalty -100 \egroup
2018-03-12T12:42:33.946038+00:00 shinyapps[258280]: \begingroup \fb@put@frame ...
2018-03-12T12:42:33.979986+00:00 shinyapps[258280]: 85: latexmk_emu
2018-03-12T12:42:33.946034+00:00 shinyapps[258280]: ! Too many }'s.
2018-03-12T12:42:33.946039+00:00 shinyapps[258280]: \begin{adjustwidth}{\fltoffset}{0mm}
2018-03-12T12:42:33.946040+00:00 shinyapps[258280]: Here is how much of TeX's memory you used:
2018-03-12T12:42:33.946040+00:00 shinyapps[258280]: 10820 strings out of 495019
2018-03-12T12:42:33.979986+00:00 shinyapps[258280]: 84: tinytex::latexmk
2018-03-12T12:42:33.979988+00:00 shinyapps[258280]: 81: eval
2018-03-12T12:42:33.946039+00:00 shinyapps[258280]: l.46 \end{kframe}
2018-03-12T12:42:33.946041+00:00 shinyapps[258280]: 161595 string characters out of 6181196
2018-03-12T12:42:33.979989+00:00 shinyapps[258280]: 79: observeEventHandler
2018-03-12T12:42:33.946041+00:00 shinyapps[258280]: 257770 words of memory out of 5000000
2018-03-12T12:42:33.946042+00:00 shinyapps[258280]: 13870 multiletter control sequences out of 15000+600000
2018-03-12T12:42:33.946043+00:00 shinyapps[258280]: 34843 words of font info for 28 fonts, out of 8000000 for 9000
2018-03-12T12:42:33.946043+00:00 shinyapps[258280]: 14 hyphenation exceptions out of 8191
2018-03-12T12:42:33.946044+00:00 shinyapps[258280]: 43i,2n,45p,1039b,284s stack positions out of 5000i,500n,10000p,200000b,80000s
2018-03-12T12:42:33.946044+00:00 shinyapps[258280]:
2018-03-12T12:42:33.948843+00:00 shinyapps[258280]: Warning: Error in : Failed to compile makePDF.tex. See makePDF.log for more info.
2018-03-12T12:42:33.979980+00:00 shinyapps[258280]: Stack trace (innermost first):
2018-03-12T12:42:33.979983+00:00 shinyapps[258280]: 89: show_latex_error
'''