Markdown preview in emacs fails: (pandoc?) error 127

Question

I am trying to create a markdown document in Emacs *.

It does highlight the syntax etc. and goes into Markdown mode (I am not quite sure if I installed that package or if it is standard issue)..

Problem:

When I try to create a preview (either via C-c C-c p or the GUI), it returns this error code:

markdown failed with exit code 127

Question

• What does this error tell me? Is there a way to get a more complete error message?

• The docs for markdown-mode suggest that it calls on an external library such as pandoc, which I have installed. According to these SO questions, pandoc can return this error code, but I could not quite establish what it means.

• How do I fix this / what documentation should I go to?

I am pretty new to Emacs, so anything will help. Thanks!

*Emacs version 25.3.1 on a Mac (Sierra 10.12.6)

Answer 1

The simplest fix is likely to install the markdown package using your package manager.

I fixed this error for myself with:

$ brew install markdown

(on MacOS Mojave, at the bash command line). Brew installed the "bottle" markdown-1.0.1.mojave.bottle.tar.gz, after which C-c C-c p or M-x markdown-preview worked to export the markdown file and open a browser window showing the exported file.

On an Ubuntu 19 (and now 20.04 and 21.10) system, sudo apt install markdown worked too.

You could do the same thing with a symlink to pandoc's markdown, but a) this just worked, b) there's no fiddling with a potentially messed up manually created symlink, and c) it's tiny (a 36 KByte executable). Pandoc's markdown may support more "modern" markdown, though.