TypeError: footnote_plugin() got an unexpected keyword argument 'inline'

[amotl]

Hi. We just observed this and wanted to share it because we haven't been able to find a similar issue. Did we miss it?

Problem

When just refreshing our authoring sandbox ¹ on our workstation, we start observing this error.

Running Sphinx v6.2.1

Exception occurred:
  File "/path/to/cratedb-guides/docs/.crate-docs/.venv/lib/python3.13/site-packages/markdown_it/main.py", line 229, in use
    plugin(self, *params, **options)
    ~~~~~~^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
TypeError: footnote_plugin() got an unexpected keyword argument 'inline'
The full traceback has been saved in /var/folders/06/w9pzygdj7vx53n_0l9q_lhph0000gn/T/sphinx-err-fdjocjll.log, if you want to report the issue to the developers.
Please also report this if it was a user error, so that a better error message can be provided next time.
A bug report can be filed in the tracker at <https://github.com/sphinx-doc/sphinx/issues>. Thanks!
Command exited with exit code: 2

Details

full traceback

$ cat /var/folders/06/w9pzygdj7vx53n_0l9q_lhph0000gn/T/sphinx-err-fdjocjll.log
# Platform:         darwin; (macOS-13.7.7-x86_64-i386-64bit-Mach-O)
# Sphinx version:   6.2.1
# Python version:   3.13.7 (CPython)
# Docutils version: 0.19
# Jinja2 version:   3.1.6
# Pygments version: 2.19.2

# Last messages:


# Loaded extensions:


# Traceback:
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/Users/amo/dev/crate/docs/cratedb-guides/docs/.crate-docs/.venv/lib/python3.13/site-packages/sphinx/cmd/build.py", line 280, in build_main
    app = Sphinx(args.sourcedir, args.confdir, args.outputdir,
                 args.doctreedir, args.builder, args.confoverrides, args.status,
                 args.warning, args.freshenv, args.warningiserror,
                 args.tags, args.verbosity, args.jobs, args.keep_going,
                 args.pdb)
  File "/Users/amo/dev/crate/docs/cratedb-guides/docs/.crate-docs/.venv/lib/python3.13/site-packages/sphinx/application.py", line 229, in __init__
    self.setup_extension(extension)
    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~^^^^^^^^^^^
  File "/Users/amo/dev/crate/docs/cratedb-guides/docs/.crate-docs/.venv/lib/python3.13/site-packages/sphinx/application.py", line 404, in setup_extension
    self.registry.load_extension(self, extname)
    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
  File "/Users/amo/dev/crate/docs/cratedb-guides/docs/.crate-docs/.venv/lib/python3.13/site-packages/sphinx/registry.py", line 455, in load_extension
    metadata = setup(app)
  File "/Users/amo/dev/crate/docs/cratedb-guides/docs/.crate-docs/.venv/lib/python3.13/site-packages/sphinx_design_elements/__init__.py", line 12, in setup
    from .extension import setup_extension
  File "/Users/amo/dev/crate/docs/cratedb-guides/docs/.crate-docs/.venv/lib/python3.13/site-packages/sphinx_design_elements/extension.py", line 13, in <module>
    from .hyper import setup_hyper
  File "/Users/amo/dev/crate/docs/cratedb-guides/docs/.crate-docs/.venv/lib/python3.13/site-packages/sphinx_design_elements/hyper.py", line 16, in <module>
    from sphinx_design_elements.util.directive import SmartReference
  File "/Users/amo/dev/crate/docs/cratedb-guides/docs/.crate-docs/.venv/lib/python3.13/site-packages/sphinx_design_elements/util/directive.py", line 44, in <module>
    mw = MarkdownWrapper()
  File "/Users/amo/dev/crate/docs/cratedb-guides/docs/.crate-docs/.venv/lib/python3.13/site-packages/sphinx_design_elements/util/directive.py", line 26, in __init__
    self.parser = create_md_parser(self.config, SphinxRenderer)
                  ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
  File "/Users/amo/dev/crate/docs/cratedb-guides/docs/.crate-docs/.venv/lib/python3.13/site-packages/myst_parser/parsers/mdit.py", line 64, in create_md_parser
    .use(footnote_plugin, inline=False, move_to_end=False, always_match_refs=True)
     ~~~^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
  File "/Users/amo/dev/crate/docs/cratedb-guides/docs/.crate-docs/.venv/lib/python3.13/site-packages/markdown_it/main.py", line 229, in use
    plugin(self, *params, **options)
    ~~~~~~^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
TypeError: footnote_plugin() got an unexpected keyword argument 'inline'

Reproduce the bug

n/a

List your environment

# Platform:         darwin; (macOS-13.7.7-x86_64-i386-64bit-Mach-O)
# Sphinx version:   6.2.1
# Python version:   3.13.7 (CPython)
# Docutils version: 0.19
# Jinja2 version:   3.1.6
# Pygments version: 2.19.2

Footnotes

1. It's based on those, but effectively it's just Sphinx.
   - https://github.com/crate/crate-docs
   - https://github.com/crate/crate-docs-theme ↩

[amotl]

With just a little educated guessing and version probing, we found that when downgrading from myst-parser 4.x to 3.x, our doc builds start working again.

• https://pypi.org/project/markdown-it-py/
• https://pypi.org/project/myst-parser/

$ uv pip install --upgrade "myst-parser<4"
Using Python 3.13.7 environment at: docs/.crate-docs/.venv
Resolved 26 packages in 309ms
Prepared 4 packages in 581ms
Uninstalled 4 packages in 134ms
Installed 4 packages in 60ms
 - docutils==0.19
 + docutils==0.21.2
 - mdit-py-plugins==0.3.5
 + mdit-py-plugins==0.5.0
 - myst-parser==4.0.1
 + myst-parser==3.0.1
 - sphinx==6.2.1
 + sphinx==7.4.7

[chrisjsewell]

Note, this was added here: #108

[amotl]

Thank you Chris. I also fully don't understand why I have been hit by the past here, or why downgrading myst-parser worked for me. A new build from scratch did not observe this hiccup, so let me close this again -- sorry for the noise.