Render to HTML fails on macOS 12 (Intel): the bundled dart-sass does not start

[shikokuchuo]

I have:

• searched the issue tracker for similar issues
• installed the latest version of Quarto CLI
• formatted my issue following the Bug Reports guide

Bug description

On macOS 12.7.6 (Intel), Quarto 1.10.18 cannot render any document to HTML.
The render stops with the error Theme file compilation failed: and an empty message.
Render to PDF works.
The cause: Quarto 1.10 bundles dart-sass 1.101.0.
The macOS x64 binary of dart-sass contains the Dart VM, and Dart requires macOS 13 or later.
The binary does not start on macOS 12.

Steps to reproduce

Minimum repro

1. Run echo "hi" > test.qmd.
2. Run quarto render test.qmd.

Actual behavior

ERROR: Theme file compilation failed:



Stack trace:
    at dartCommand (file:///Applications/quarto/bin/quarto.js:79972:11)
    at async dartCompile (file:///Applications/quarto/bin/quarto.js:79926:3)
    at async SassCache.setFromHash (file:///Applications/quarto/bin/quarto.js:80089:11)
    at async compileSass (file:///Applications/quarto/bin/quarto.js:87474:19)
    at async resolveSassBundles (file:///Applications/quarto/bin/quarto.js:125332:17)
    ...

The message after the colon is empty.

Render to PDF works on the same machine.
PDF output does not use dart-sass.

Expected behavior

Expected result: Quarto creates test.html.

Your environment

• macOS 12.7.6, Intel (x86_64)
• Quarto 1.10.18, installed at /Applications/quarto
• No project is necessary. The error occurs in an empty directory.

Quarto check output

quarto check fails with the same error.

[shikokuchuo]

We ran into this at conf workshop. Discussed with @cscheid and we probably need to drop support for older macOS, and just surface an appropriate error when attempting to install on such platforms.