tikz externalization and glossaries give cryptic error

Question

As per the title, I am trying to compile the following with the latest TexLive:

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{tikz}
\usetikzlibrary{external}
\tikzexternalize
\tikzexternalenable
\usepackage{glossaries-extra}
\makenoidxglossaries{}
\begin{document}
\begin{figure}[htbp]\tikzsetnextfilename{test-figure}
    \begin{tikzpicture}
        \node at (0, 0) {hi, mom};
    \end{tikzpicture}
\end{figure}
\printnoidxglossary{}
\end{document}

The compilation fails. Inspecting test-figure.log we find:

! Too many }'s.
<argument> ...keys {glossaries-extra.sty}{docdef}}
                                                  {\PackageError {glossaries...
l.9 \makenoidxglossaries
                        {}

I have no idea how to even begin to investigate such an error. The code I've posted is a minimal reproducing example distilled down from my actual use case. I'd appreciate any kind of help and am willing to provide anything that may help you help me. Thank you all in advance.

Replacing glossaries-extra with glossaries makes the MWE compile fine.

Works for me if \makenoidxglossaries goes before \tikzexternalize. which seems similar to this question, but the issue here seems more recent as this code works for me with TL 2020 but fails with latest. — Dai Bowen, Mar 17 '23 at 19:02

score 1 · Answer 1 · answered Mar 18 '23 at 21:15

Swapping the order of \tikzexternalize and \makenoidxglossaries{} seems to work

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{tikz}
\usetikzlibrary{external}
\usepackage{glossaries-extra}
\makenoidxglossaries{}
\tikzexternalize
\tikzexternalenable
\begin{document}
\begin{figure}[htbp]\tikzsetnextfilename{test-figure}
    \begin{tikzpicture}
        \node at (0, 0) {hi, mom};
    \end{tikzpicture}
\end{figure}
\printnoidxglossary{}
\end{document}

Curiously, this seems to go against the suggestion in the TikZ manual that problems with \tikzexternalize and \usepackage{glossary} can be resolved by putting \tikzexternalize before \usepackage{glossary}.

Whatever is causing the issue appears to be caused by recent changes, your example compiles fine for me on TL 2020 but does error with latest versions.

tikz externalization and glossaries give cryptic error

1 Answers1