Unable to compile PDF from .rnw in RStudio

[grainnhogg]

Hello,
I am unable to compile .tex or .rnw files in RStudio using either the 'Compile PDF' button or by knitr::knit2PDF.
I'm using Windows 10 Enterprise 19045.2965, and I just uninstalled and reinstalled the following:

• MiKTeX 23.4
• R 4.3.0
• RStudio 2023.03.1+446

Also, my current RStudio Global Sweave Options are as follow:

Weave Rnw files using: knitr
Typeset LaTeX into PDF using: pdfLaTeX
Use tinytex when compiling .tex files 
Clean auxiliary output after compile 

My file (stuff.rnw) is as follows:

\documentclass{article}
\begin{document}
stuff
\end{document}

When I hit 'Compile PDF' in RStudio, I get the following error:

processing file: stuff.Rnw
                                                                                                                                                                       
output file: stuff.tex

! Sorry, but C:\PROGRA~1\MiKTeX\miktex\bin\x64\pdflatex.exe did not succeed.

! The log file hopefully contains the information to get MiKTeX going again:

!   C:\Users\myname\AppData\Local\MiKTeX\miktex\log\pdflatex.log

Error: LaTeX failed to compile stuff.tex. See https://yihui.org/tinytex/r/#debugging for debugging tips. See stuff.log for more info.

The log is uninformative for me (and very long). Furthermore, when I run the following function

knit2sumatra <- function(input) {
  # "input" should be the filename WITHOUT extension
  knitr::knit2pdf(paste0(input, ".Rnw"))
  system2(
    "C:/Program Files/Rstudio/resources/app/bin/sumatra/SumatraPDF.exe",
    args = paste0(input, ".pdf"),
    wait = FALSE,
    invisible = FALSE
  )
}

on stuff.rnw, I get the exact same error.

The path to my MiKTeX executables, i.e. C:\Program Files\MiKTeX\miktex\bin\x64\ is in my environment variable list.

Finally, I don't have admin access to my own computer, so have to call an IT help desk everytime I want to try anything that requires elevated privelages.

I've read extensively through recommended solutions for related problems, and cannot figure this out. Any suggestions? Thank you for considering.