"Unmarshal failed" - is this a config.toml error?

support
1

Continuing down the Quickstart on my Mac with Hugo v0.160.0, I’m having trouble with building my site, getting:ERROR error building site: assemble: failed to create page from pageMetaSource /posts/my-first-post:"/Users/flourish/quickstart/content/posts/my-first-post.md:4:9": unmarshal failed: toml: incomplete number

Based on other Forum posts, I am guessing that the problem is the same as others have and that there is an error in config.toml (which I infer is a file related to what theme I am using), but here’s where my unfamiliarity with things starts really biting me in the behind: the only config.toml file I can find appears to be related not to my site, but to Go overall, and has nothing in it related to my theme.

Incidentally, I’m not sure what the “:4:9” is doing on the end of my Markdown file - it isn’t actually part of the name of the file.

Any help very welcome - the last time I tried to self-host a blog I was using GreyMatter (if anyone else is old enough to remember that) so I am (gulp) about 25 years out of the loop on this one.

2

Please post the front matter for the problem post, wrapping it with three backticks or using the </> button above.

“:4:9”

That’s row and column number in the affected file.

3

Ah - thank you! Alas, at first I thought that would point me to where the error is, but I still am at sea.

Front matter:

+++
date = ‘2026-04-04T14:59:39-04:00’
draft = true
title = ‘First Post’
+++

4

It looks like you’re using smart quotes instead of normal quotes. Use ' or " instead.

5

Bizarre! How did those get in there? (I’m not using some weird editor or anything…) Thank you, that’s another obvious one.

6

If you’re not familiar with TOML, you might want to look at the spec:
https://toml.io/en/

7

I will, thank you!

8

If your’re more comfortable with a different serialization format, you may also use YAML or JSON in both your project config and front matter.

https://gohugo.io/content-management/front-matter/#overview

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