install renv 0.13.0 --> Error: package or namespace load failed for ‘renv’:

tidyverse
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1

I have a linux laptop with R 4.0.4

I was trying to update packages from CRAN and the update of renv from 0.12.5 to 0.13.0 failed with the message "Error: package or namespace load failed ". It failed a second attempt - so, not transient weirdness in the download.

I tried uninstalling and re-installing renv. That was probably a bad idea because the uninstall worked and the re-install failed.

I decided to cut my losses and install the development version from GitHub.

I am hoping that the problem will have gone away the next time the version of renv on CRAN is updated.

> remove.packages("renv", lib="~/R/x86_64-pc-linux-gnu-library/4.0")


> install.packages("renv")
Installing package into ‘/home/ross/R/x86_64-pc-linux-gnu-library/4.0’
(as ‘lib’ is unspecified)
trying URL 'https://cloud.r-project.org/src/contrib/renv_0.13.0.tar.gz'
Content type 'application/x-gzip' length 413734 bytes (404 KB)
==================================================
downloaded 404 KB

* installing *source* package ‘renv’ ...
** package ‘renv’ successfully unpacked and MD5 sums checked
** using staged installation
** R
** inst
** byte-compile and prepare package for lazy loading
** help
*** installing help indices
*** copying figures
** building package indices
** installing vignettes
** testing if installed package can be loaded from temporary location
Error: package or namespace load failed for ‘renv’:
 .onLoad failed in loadNamespace() for 'renv', details:
  call: if (last %in% endings) return(TRUE)
  error: argument is of length zero
Error: loading failed
Execution halted
ERROR: loading failed
* removing ‘/home/ross/R/x86_64-pc-linux-gnu-library/4.0/renv’
Warning in install.packages :
  installation of package ‘renv’ had non-zero exit status

The downloaded source packages are in
	‘/tmp/Rtmp4GzUP5/downloaded_packages’


> remotes::install_github("rstudio/renv")
Downloading GitHub repo rstudio/renv@HEAD
✓  checking for file ‘/tmp/Rtmp4GzUP5/remotes22c361c4c3be/rstudio-renv-1fc1e29/DESCRIPTION’ ...
─  preparing ‘renv’:
✓  checking DESCRIPTION meta-information ...
─  checking for LF line-endings in source and make files and shell scripts
─  checking for empty or unneeded directories
   Removed empty directory ‘renv/tests/testthat/resources/dummy.Rmd’
─  building ‘renv_0.13.0-2.tar.gz’
   
Installing package into ‘/home/ross/R/x86_64-pc-linux-gnu-library/4.0’
(as ‘lib’ is unspecified)
* installing *source* package ‘renv’ ...
** using staged installation
** R
** inst
** byte-compile and prepare package for lazy loading
** help
*** installing help indices
*** copying figures
** building package indices
** installing vignettes
** testing if installed package can be loaded from temporary location
** testing if installed package can be loaded from final location
** testing if installed package keeps a record of temporary installation path
* DONE (renv)
>
1 Like
2

Thanks for the bug report! It looks like this issue can occur if you have an empty user profile; that is, if ~/.Rprofile exists but is empty. The simplest workaround is either:

  1. Remove that file altogether, or
  2. Add some (arbitrary) content.

I'll get this fixed up for the next release of renv.

2 Likes
3

Thanks @kevinushey !

I confirm that I did indeed have an empty ~/.Rprofile (I've no idea why) and that deleting that file allowed me to install renv from my usual CRAN mirror.

Bonza!

4

Glad to hear that fixed it up! Sorry for the trouble, but glad we were able to quickly find and resolve the issue.

5

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