Showing page failed while exporting page

Error message

Showing page failed while exporting page {i} as pdf, Err: {e:?}

What it means

Error wrapper around File::open in load_sound_from_path: opening `<resource_path>/<sound_name>.<ending>` failed (missing asset, wrong path, or permission error) while loading a bundled sound for the audio player. The path was checked with exists() just before, so the failure is typically permissions or a race.

Solutions

Inspect the error variant e: cairo Error::SurfaceFinished means the pdf target surface was finished before drawing — keep the surface alive and do not use the cairo context after finish_output_stream()/flush.
Retry the export once with a freshly created cairo surface and context; transient surface/IO failures typically resolve on a new target.
Verify the failing page's content: render pages one by one (or into an intermediate surface) to isolate a page whose draw_to_cairo fails, and check for degenerate page_bounds values (NaN/zero-size) from bounds().
If running headless/CI, confirm a usable cairo rendering backend and required fonts are installed; missing fontconfig can make show/draw calls fail.
Update/verify cairo and pango crate versions match the system cairo library; mismatched native libs cause drawing failures mid-export.

When it happens

Trigger: Thrown at crates/rnote-engine/src/engine/export.rs:515 when the library encounters an invalid state.

Common situations: See trigger scenarios.

AI-assisted analysis of flxzt/rnote@bbc5354502 (2026-09-08). Data as JSON: /api/errors/03a1138a5c75d3fe. Report an issue: GitHub.

Appendix: source

Thrown at crates/rnote-engine/src/engine/export.rs:515

                    let cairo_cx = cairo::Context::new(&target_surface)
                        .context("Creating new cairo context for pdf target surface failed.")?;

                    for (i, page_content) in pages_content.into_iter().enumerate() {
                        let Some(page_bounds) = page_content.bounds() else {
                            continue;
                        };
                        cairo_cx.save()?;
                        cairo_cx.translate(-page_bounds.mins[0], -page_bounds.mins[1]);
                        page_content.draw_to_cairo(
                            &cairo_cx,
                            doc_export_prefs.with_background,
                            doc_export_prefs.with_pattern,
                            doc_export_prefs.optimize_printing,
                            DocExportPrefs::MARGIN,
                            Engine::STROKE_EXPORT_IMAGE_SCALE,
                        )?;
                        cairo_cx.show_page().map_err(|e| {
                            anyhow::anyhow!(
                                "Showing page failed while exporting page {i} as pdf, Err: {e:?}"
                            )
                        })?;
                        cairo_cx.restore()?;
                    }
                }
                let data = *target_surface
                    .finish_output_stream()
                    .map_err(|e| anyhow::anyhow!("Finishing outputstream failed, Err: {e:?}"))?
                    .downcast::<Vec<u8>>()
                    .map_err(|e| {
                        anyhow::anyhow!("Downcasting finished output stream failed, Err: {e:?}")
                    })?;

                Ok(data)
            };

            if oneshot_sender.send(result()).is_err() {

View on GitHub (pinned to bbc5354502)