Tested for me and provided I allocate path <- "~" and delete relocate(symbol line - I assume jdate is a field in your CSV which I dont have.) this works for me.
The only way I know to debug this is to go line by line and see what it creates along the way...?
I sincerely doubt that the error you shared arrives on the console when you run only the code that you shared.
I would guess that you get an error (which you have not shared) after running the code, and then when you run yet other code (not shared) that relies on merge_data, that would deliver the error message you quoted.