Package 'metacont' not available for R version 4.0.2

[Dr.Hildey]

Hi everyone

I've been doing my meta-analysis while working with R version 3.6.2, but needed to upgrade it & install Rtools for a specific package (dmetar). I've succesfully installed R version 4.0.2. and Rtools version 40, and have been able to install dmetar, meta & metafor, but when I try to install the metacont package I get the following error:

install.packages("metacont")
Installing package into ‘C:/Users/hilde/Documents/R/win-library/4.0’
(as ‘lib’ is unspecified)
Warning message:
package ‘metacont’ is not available (for R version 4.0.2)

I'm relatively new to R, does anybody know how I could get the metacont package to work?

Thank you so much in advance!

Sincerely,

Hilde

[andresrcs]

From a quick internet search, it seems there is no metacont package, but a metacont() function from the meta package.

[Dr.Hildey]

Hi Andres,

Thank you for your very fast reply! I guess you are right, I think a got a bit thrown off:
I was looking for a solution for the following error, and thought it would be in the metacont function, but I see now that it is not.
The problem is this:

When I try to run the forest() function, I get the following error:
Error in forest.default(MIMAMotorImptot, text.addline1 = "Motor Impairment. Analysis 1", :
Must specify either 'vi', 'sei', or ('ci.lb', 'ci.ub') pairs.

The code that I'm trying to run is the following:
forest(MIMAMotorImptot, text.addline1= "Motor Impairment. Analysis 1", xlab="SMD >0 favours intervention", comb.fixed = TRUE, test.overall.fixed = TRUE, col.fixed="steel blue", col.diamond.fixed = "steel blue", comb.random = TRUE, test.overall.random = TRUE, fontsize = 10, digits.se = 1, digits.mean = 1, col.random = "red", col.diamond.random = "red")

It ran perfectly every time under R version 3.6.1., do you have any ideas what it could be? I've been stuck for the entire afternoon :(( Thank you so much for your help!

[andresrcs]

Well, that is a different question, I recommend you to ask it on a new topic providing a proper minimal REPRoducible EXample (reprex). A reprex makes it much easier for others to understand your issue and figure out how to help.

If you've never heard of a reprex before, you might want to start by reading this FAQ:

FAQ: How to do a minimal reproducible example ( reprex ) for beginners

A minimal reproducible example consists of the following items: A minimal dataset, necessary to reproduce the issue The minimal runnable code necessary to reproduce the issue, which can be run on the given dataset, and including the necessary information on the used packages. Let's quickly go over each one of these with examples: Minimal Dataset (Sample Data) You need to provide a data frame that is small enough to be (reasonably) pasted on a post, but big enough to reproduce your issue. Let's say, as an example, that you are working with the iris data frame head(iris) #> Sepal.Length Sepal.Width Petal.Length Petal.Width Species #> 1 5.1 3.5 1.4 0.…

[Dr.Hildey]

Hi Andres,

Thank you for your fast reply (again), it makes perfect sense that I have to give more information for this to be fixed. I read your FAQ, I will upload a reprex tomorrow morning, thanks again!
Buenas noches

[Dr.Hildey]

I don't know why it worked, but this was the solution:
I deleted the R version 4.0.2. and re-installed version 3.6.1., in which I loaded the Rtools40.
The dmetar package worked this time and I didn't get any errors anymore

[andresrcs]

Just to clarify, Rtools40 won't work with R < 4.0.0 so most likely it is not related to this.