Stuck at install.packages

[xiaodaigh]

When I try to do

R"""
install.packages("data.table")
"""

The julia REPL gets stuck at

--- Please select a CRAN mirror for use in this session ---

so I tried

R"""
install.packages("data.table", repos="https://cran.rstudio.com")
"""

and it also gets stuck, but this time no error message. How can I install packages through RCall.jl? I am call RCall in my package so I want to provide a function to my users to install packages.

[Non-Contradiction]

The problem is the same as rcall or R repl. I'm not sure where the problem is, but a temporary solution could be to install R packages through some external process by run.

[simonbyrne]

I think if you set CRAN mirror beforehand, it should work.

We should provide a prompt mechanism as well though

[xiaodaigh]

Maybe access this PR? It works for me #342

[angusmoore]

I think if you set CRAN mirror beforehand, it should work.

We should provide a prompt mechanism as well though

Unfortunately, I think this is a deeper issue. Any attempt to call utils::download.file hangs, so specifying a CRAN mirror doesn't help (which is what install.packages is doing under the hood). I've only tested on Windows 10, but can check on linux later today.

MWE:

R"""
utils::download.file("https://cran.r-project.org/bin/windows/contrib/3.6/ggplot2_3.2.1.zip","ggplot2.zip")
"""

This creates/touches the file, but doesn't download anything to it (i.e. the file exists on the filesystem, but is 0b).

[yha]

Why was this closed?
I see the same issue with version 0.13.14 as well as on master. install.packages is stuck at the "Please select a CRAN mirror" message. utils::download.file opens a progress bar and is then stuck.

[palday]

Can you try adding method="wget" to your install.packages invocation? It's somewhat expected behavior that interactive menus on the R side don't work in a plain reval/ R"..." invocation, but they should work in the R REPL mode. R however can fail rather ungracefully when the default download mode isn't available (which I've often run into on CI).

[xiaodaigh]

Tried it. Same issue

[palday]

Hmmm, I'm at a loss. We literally use this in our own CI:

RCall.jl/test/namespaces.jl

Lines 29 to 33 in 0bb0d53

	tmp = mktempdir()
	reval("""lib <- "$(tmp)"
	.libPaths(lib)
	install.packages("ape", repos="https://cloud.r-project.org", method="wget", lib=lib)
	library("ape")""")