remotes::install_ fails if a dependency has been installed already

[ChrisPAC]

Running in a new directory:

renv::init()

renv::settings$use.cache(FALSE)

install.packages("yaml")
install.packages("remotes")

remotes::install_github("rstudio/blogdown")

Returns:
Error: Failed to install 'blogdown' from GitHub: argument is of length zero

In this example yaml is in the Imports section of the blogdown description file.

[kevinushey]

I wasn't able to reproduce. Can you provide some more information (e.g. your sessionInfo())?

[ChrisPAC]

R version 3.4.4 (2018-03-15)
Platform: x86_64-pc-linux-gnu (64-bit)
Running under: Ubuntu 18.04.2 LTS

Matrix products: default
BLAS: /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/blas/libblas.so.3.7.1
LAPACK: /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/lapack/liblapack.so.3.7.1

locale:
[1] LC_CTYPE=en_GB.UTF-8 LC_NUMERIC=C LC_TIME=en_GB.UTF-8
[4] LC_COLLATE=en_GB.UTF-8 LC_MONETARY=en_GB.UTF-8 LC_MESSAGES=en_GB.UTF-8
[7] LC_PAPER=en_GB.UTF-8 LC_NAME=C LC_ADDRESS=C
[10] LC_TELEPHONE=C LC_MEASUREMENT=en_GB.UTF-8 LC_IDENTIFICATION=C

attached base packages:
[1] stats graphics grDevices datasets utils methods base

loaded via a namespace (and not attached):
[1] compiler_3.4.4 tools_3.4.4 remotes_2.1.0 renv_0.6.0-76

[kevinushey]

It could also be helpful to see the entirety of the output you see (to get a better hint where the error is happening -- is it renv or remotes?)

You could also check whether renv::install("rstudio/blogdown") works for you, since renv comes with support for GitHub remotes.

[ChrisPAC]

Sure, here is the complete output:

> renv::init()
* Discovering package dependencies ... Done!
* Copying packages into the cache ... Done!
* Lockfile written to '~/Projects/BugReports/PackageInstallationsRenv/renv.lock'.
* Project '~/Projects/BugReports/PackageInstallationsRenv' loaded. [renv 0.6.0-76]

Restarting R session...

* Project '~/Projects/BugReports/PackageInstallationsRenv' loaded. [renv 0.6.0-76]
> renv::settings$use.cache(FALSE)
* Copying packages into the private library ... Done!
* The cache has been disabled for this project.
> install.packages("htmltools")
* Querying repositories for available source packages ... Done!
Installing digest [0.6.20] ...
	OK (copied cache)
Installing Rcpp [1.0.2] ...
	OK (copied cache)
Installing htmltools [0.3.6] ...
	OK (copied cache)
* The lockfile is already up to date.
> install.packages("remotes")
Installing remotes [2.1.0] ...
	OK (copied cache)
* The lockfile is already up to date.
> remotes::install_github("rstudio/blogdown")
Downloading GitHub repo rstudio/blogdown@master
Error: Failed to install 'blogdown' from GitHub:
  argument is of length zero

[ChrisPAC]

renv::install("rstudio/blogdown") does work for me.

However I originally came across the problem using gitlab, which I don't think renv supports. I used github just for the example.

[kevinushey]

renv does indeed support GitLab, although a number of changes were just made recently to support GitLab groups + subgroups. You can install packages with something like:

renv::install("gitlab::user/repo")

Or, with a custom host:

renv::install("gitlab@gitlab-server.com::user/repo")

Regardless, the error appears to be happening in remotes and I do not know what the error might be. A traceback could be useful.

[ChrisPAC]

Brilliant, sorry I hadn't found that out myself. Using renv::install("gitlab::user/repo") does solve my problem.

Would you still be interested in a traceback or futher information on the error in remotes?

[kevinushey]

Yes, that would be useful. If it looks like a real problem in renv we could fix it here; otherwise, we could file an issue for remotes if we're able to learn what's going on.

[ChrisPAC]

Ok, here's the result of running traceback after the error.

> renv::init()
* Discovering package dependencies ... Done!
* Copying packages into the cache ... Done!
* Lockfile written to '~/Projects/BugReports/PackageInstallationsRenv/renv.lock'.
* Project '~/Projects/BugReports/PackageInstallationsRenv' loaded. [renv 0.6.0-63]

Restarting R session...

* Project '~/Projects/BugReports/PackageInstallationsRenv' loaded. [renv 0.6.0-63]
> renv::settings$use.cache(FALSE)
* Copying packages into the private library ... Done!
* The cache has been disabled for this project.
> 
> install.packages("htmltools")
* Querying repositories for available source packages ... Done!
Installing digest [0.6.20] ...
	OK (copied cache)
Installing Rcpp [1.0.2] ...
	OK (copied cache)
Installing htmltools [0.3.6] ...
	OK (copied cache)
* The lockfile is already up to date.
> install.packages("remotes")
Installing remotes [2.1.0] ...
	OK (copied cache)
* The lockfile is already up to date.
> remotes::install_github("rstudio/blogdown")
Downloading GitHub repo rstudio/blogdown@master
Error: Failed to install 'blogdown' from GitHub:
  argument is of length zero
> traceback()
7: stop(remote_install_error(remotes[[i]], e))
6: value[[3L]](cond)
5: tryCatchOne(expr, names, parentenv, handlers[[1L]])
4: tryCatchList(expr, classes, parentenv, handlers)
3: tryCatch(res[[i]] <- install_remote(remotes[[i]], ...), error = function(e) {
       stop(remote_install_error(remotes[[i]], e))
   })
2: install_remotes(remotes, auth_token = auth_token, host = host, 
       dependencies = dependencies, upgrade = upgrade, force = force, 
       quiet = quiet, build = build, build_opts = build_opts, build_manual = build_manual, 
       build_vignettes = build_vignettes, repos = repos, type = type, 
       ...)
1: remotes::install_github("rstudio/blogdown")

[ChrisPAC]

I've had a more detailed look and it seems to be related to this part of the DESCRIPTION files:

RemoteType: standard
RemoteRef: yaml
RemoteRepos: https://cloud.r-project.org
RemoteSha: 2.2.0

For RemoteType: standard, remotes seems to rely on there being another field present, RemotePkgType.

Whether that should be included by renv when a package is installed, or whether remotes should be able to use a sensible default is beyond me!

[kevinushey]

This sounds like a bug in remotes that has since been fixed in at least the development version:

r-lib/remotes#309
r-lib/remotes#310

[kevinushey]

FWIW, I believe that remote format will be written out when installing packages from CRAN with pak.

[kevinushey]

Since this appears to be independent of renv, I'm going to close this issue. Thanks for taking the time to test!