UsingCircularTemplateContentReferenceError when using Eleventy snippets in Markdown

[fragosti]

Describe the bug
When using

<ul>
  {%- for post in collections.post | reverse | limit(postsListLimit) -%}
  <li class="py-3">
    <h3>
      <a href="{{ post.url | url }}">{{ post.data.title }}</a>
    </h3>
    <label>
      {{ post.date | dateReadable }}
    </label>
    <p class="line-clamp py-1">
      {% excerpt post %}
    </p>
  </li>
  {%- endfor -%}
</ul>

In my markdown, I get

> ./src/site/index.njk contains a circular reference (using collections) to its own templateContent.

`UsingCircularTemplateContentReferenceError` was thrown:
    UsingCircularTemplateContentReferenceError: ./src/site/index.njk contains a circular reference (using collections) to its own templateContent.
        at TemplateMap.populateContentDataInMap (/Users/francescoagosti/Projects/blog/node_modules/@11ty/eleventy/src/TemplateMap.js:382:17)
        at processTicksAndRejections (internal/process/task_queues.js:86:5)
Copied 1 item / Wrote 0 files in 0.09 seconds (v0.10.0)

I get this for other syntax as well, like when using:

{% include "components/postslist.njk" %}

My markdown-it config is

  eleventyConfig.setLibrary(
    'md',
    markdownIt({ html: true })
      .use(markdownItAnchor, {
        permalink: true,
        permalinkSymbol: '<i data-feather="link" class="link"></i>',
      })
      .use(markdownItLinkAttr, {
        // Make external links open in a new tab.
        pattern: /^https?:\/\//,
        attrs: {
          target: '_blank',
          rel: 'noopener noreferrer',
        },
      })
  )

Expected behavior
For eleventy not to process the template code in markdown code snippets.

Environment:

• OS and Version: Mac OS Sierra
• Eleventy Version: 0.11.0

[fragosti]

This fixed it:

-    markdownTemplateEngine: 'njk',
+    markdownTemplateEngine: false,
   }

[fragosti]

Re-opening as this is still an issue if you want to use nunchucks in your markdown.

[mpalpha]

Re-opening as this is still an issue if you want to use nunchucks in your markdown.

Having the same issue here.

[TigersWay]

Same issue too here.... But very different environment!
Windows 10, eleventy last commit from github, nunjucks templates

~= 2000 articles, but 3 with a link to a perfectly working page give that message. No idea where to go from there!

[TigersWay]

Same issue too here.... But very different environment!
Windows 10, eleventy last commit from github, nunjucks templates

Not really... Just some trouble with eleventyComputed which needed to go too deep!

[gbirke]

I was having the same issue with a liquid template (for rendering tags with post excerpts), so the problem seems to be universal. I also use the excerpt short code (with a custom function), so I guess the access to templateContent inside the excerpt function might be the culprit.

I have solved the problem (rather clumsily) with the following code snippet at the top of my excerpt function:

function excerpt(post){
  // list of template pages  that iterate over post
  const iteratingTemplates = ['./src/index.liquid', './src/tags.liquid'];
  if (iteratingTemplates.indexOf(post.inputPath)>-1) {
    return null;
  }
 // now extract the excerpt from post.templateContent
}

Of course this means that templates which contain lists can never have excerpts and that you have to add your specific template names to your custom excerpt function. A better approach would probably be to check somewhere in post.template if the template matches post.inputPath, preventing a post from trying to excerpt itself. But I don't know enough how 11ty works to know where to look for that information or if such an approach is even possible.

[jboolean]

I'm trying to render one collection from an item in another collection, and I get this error. I see nothing circular about it. Turning off markdownTemplateEngine does not resolve it. 😕

[megheaiulian]

Came across this issue too. Turns out that the problem was that 11ty didn't knew about the collections used.
Using eleventyImport front matter config fixed the problem.
See https://www.11ty.dev/docs/collections/#declare-your-collections-for-incremental-builds and #975.

[guilleliss]

Came across this issue too. Turns out that the problem was that 11ty didn't knew about the collections used. Using eleventyImport front matter config fixed the problem. See https://www.11ty.dev/docs/collections/#declare-your-collections-for-incremental-builds and #975.

Thanks, it seems that this might work, but I do not understand how to use it. I have the same issue, getting a warning for UsingCircularTemplateContentReferenceError when using templateContent within the excerpt shortcode in a tags template

[guilleliss]

I managed to solve this but filtering all from the collections in the tags template, this is the tags template:

---
layout: base
pagination:
  data: collections
  size: 1
  alias: tag
  filter:
      - post
      - all
permalink: /tags/{{ tag }}/