flxzt/rnote · error

Generating doc svg failed, returned None.

Error message

Generating doc svg failed, returned None.

What it means

During doc export, gen_svg is asked to render the whole document as SVG; it may return None (no renderable content) rather than an error. export_doc_as_svg_bytes treats that None as a failure and throws this error, since a doc export must always produce SVG.

Solutions

  1. Check the document has at least one drawable stroke/content before exporting as SVG.
  2. Relax export filters (with_background, with_pattern, optimize_printing) that may suppress all output.
  3. Handle the export error and report 'nothing to export' to the user instead of crashing.
  4. Fall back to exporting a blank page if an empty SVG is acceptable.

Example fix

// before
let svg_bytes = engine.export_doc(export_prefs).await?;
// after
if engine.document.content_bounds().is_none() {
    eprintln!("document is empty; nothing to export as SVG");
} else {
    let svg_bytes = engine.export_doc(export_prefs).await?;
}
Defensive patterns

Strategy: try-catch

Validate before calling

fn can_export_doc(engine: &RnoteEngine) -> bool {
    engine.document.content_bounds().is_some()
}

Try / catch

match engine.export_doc(export_prefs).await {
    Ok(bytes) => bytes,
    Err(e) if e.to_string().contains("returned None") => {
        eprintln!("nothing to export: document produced no SVG");
        Vec::new()
    }
    Err(e) => return Err(e),
}

Prevention

When it happens

Trigger: Calling export_doc -> export_doc_as_svg_bytes on a document whose gen_svg returns None, e.g. a document with no renderable strokes/content or filter settings (with_background, optimize_printing) eliminating everything.

Common situations: Exporting an empty or effectively empty .rnote file, exporting after programmatic modifications that removed all content, or calling the export API from scripts on documents that were never populated.

Understand the failure class

Background: EmptyResultError / "no results found": when an API or scraper succeeds but returns zero rows — this error's family across 9 libraries.

Related errors

AI-assisted analysis of flxzt/rnote@bbc5354502 (2026-09-08). Data as JSON: /api/errors/d2025b16b401c7a6. Report an issue: GitHub.

Appendix: source

Thrown at crates/rnote-engine/src/engine/export.rs:444

    fn export_doc_as_svg_bytes(
        &self,
        doc_export_prefs_override: Option<DocExportPrefs>,
    ) -> oneshot::Receiver<Result<Vec<u8>, anyhow::Error>> {
        let (oneshot_sender, oneshot_receiver) = oneshot::channel::<anyhow::Result<Vec<u8>>>();
        let doc_export_prefs =
            doc_export_prefs_override.unwrap_or(self.config.read().export_prefs.doc_export_prefs);
        let doc_content = self.extract_document_content();

        rayon::spawn(move || {
            let result = || -> anyhow::Result<Vec<u8>> {
                let doc_svg = doc_content
                    .gen_svg(
                        doc_export_prefs.with_background,
                        doc_export_prefs.with_pattern,
                        doc_export_prefs.optimize_printing,
                        DocExportPrefs::MARGIN,
                    )?
                    .ok_or(anyhow::anyhow!("Generating doc svg failed, returned None."))?;
                Ok(rnote_compose::utils::add_xml_header(
                    rnote_compose::utils::wrap_svg_root(
                        doc_svg.svg_data.as_str(),
                        Some(doc_svg.bounds),
                        Some(doc_svg.bounds),
                        false,
                    )
                    .as_str(),
                )
                .into_bytes())
            };

            if oneshot_sender.send(result()).is_err() {
                error!(
                    "Sending result to receiver failed while exporting document as Svg bytes. Receiver already dropped."
                );
            }
        });

View on GitHub (pinned to bbc5354502)