LaTex fails to compile PDF - pdf

Question

Since yesterday, I get a confusing error, when trying to knit my Markdown files to PDF. I get this warning:
This is pdfTeX, Version 3.141592653-2.6-1.40.24 (TeX Live 2022) (preloaded format=pdflatex)
restricted \write18 enabled.
entering extended mode
I was unable to find any missing LaTeX packages from the error log Chapter-5-1.log.
! Extra }, or forgotten \endgroup.
\endwraptable ...kip \egroup \box \z# \fi \egroup
\WF#floatstyhook \def \wid...
l.156 \end{wraptable}
Fehler: LaTeX failed to compile Chapter-5-1.tex. See https://yihui.org/tinytex/r/#debugging for debugging tips. See Chapter-5-1.log for more info.
Ausführung angehalten
The problem seems to be the kable tables, which have been knit in prior tries just nicely. In the error log, this is printed:
Overfull \hbox (165.80571pt too wide) in paragraph at lines 142--158
[][]
[]
! Extra }, or forgotten \endgroup.
\endwraptable ...kip \egroup \box \z# \fi \egroup
\WF#floatstyhook \def \wid...
l.158 \end{wraptable}
A friend of mine tried to compile the tex file directly to PDF, but got the same error. We where not able to find a missing } or any other error in the coding. All tables and code is running without error in the markdown preview.
I get the same error, when I try to knit a document with a dummy table, so I hope that works as a reproducible example.
---
title: "Chapter 5"
author: "Moiken Hinrichs"
date: "`r format(Sys.time(), '%d.%m.%Y')`"
header-includes:
- \usepackage{caption}
- \usepackage{float}
- \captionsetup[figure]{font=footnotesize}
- \usepackage{subfig}
- \usepackage{flafter}
- \usepackage{footmisc}
output:
bookdown::pdf_document2:
extra_dependencies: ["flafter"]
number_sections: true
toc: false
latex_engine: xelatex
classoption: twoside
keep_tex: true
---
```{r setup, include=FALSE}
knitr::opts_chunk$set(echo = TRUE)
library(knitr)
library(kableExtra)
library(dplyr, quietly=T)
library(tidyr)
```
```{r prox}
column1 <- c("Bert", "Angela", "Nico", "Pam", "Max")
column2 <- c(33, 54, 85, 96, 57)
prox <- data.frame(column1, column2)
prox[nrow(prox)+1, ] <- c('Total', sum(prox$column2))
kable(prox, booktabs = T, linesep = "",
col.names = c("Name", "Count"),
caption = "Number of items") %>%
kable_styling(latex_options = "striped", position = "float_right") %>%
row_spec(5, hline_after = T) %>%
row_spec(6, bold = T)
```
R studio and tinytex are updated. I tried all the debugging tips and uninstalled and installed tinytex new. The same error is also happening when I try to knit on another computer. I also tried to change from xelatex to pdflatex but the error was the same.

Answer 1

The wrapfig package does not particular like zero width wrapfigure or -table environments with captions. Unfortunately that's the width rmarkdown seems to use by default.
The package documentation has the following to say about the topic:
[...] However, if you specify a width of zero (0pt), the actual width of the figure will determine the wrapping width. A following \caption should have the same width as the figure, but it might fail badly; it is safer to specify a width when you use a caption.
You can avoid the problem by choosing a suitable width:
---
title: "Chapter 5"
author: "Moiken Hinrichs"
date: "`r format(Sys.time(), '%d.%m.%Y')`"
header-includes:
- \usepackage{caption}
- \usepackage{float}
- \captionsetup[figure]{font=footnotesize}
- \usepackage{subfig}
- \usepackage{flafter}
- \usepackage{footmisc}
- \usepackage{lipsum}
output:
bookdown::pdf_document2:
extra_dependencies: ["flafter"]
number_sections: true
toc: false
latex_engine: xelatex
classoption: twoside
keep_tex: true
---
```{r setup, include=FALSE}
knitr::opts_chunk$set(echo = TRUE)
library(knitr)
library(kableExtra)
library(dplyr, quietly=T)
library(tidyr)
```
```{r prox}
column1 <- c("Bert", "Angela", "Nico", "Pam", "Max")
column2 <- c(33, 54, 85, 96, 57)
prox <- data.frame(column1, column2)
prox[nrow(prox)+1, ] <- c('Total', sum(prox$column2))
kable(prox, booktabs = T, linesep = "",
col.names = c("Name", "Count"),
caption = "Number of items") %>%
kable_styling(latex_options = "striped", position = "float_right", wraptable_width = "3cm") %>%
row_spec(5, hline_after = T) %>%
row_spec(6, bold = T)
```
\lipsum