[R] Issues with TMPDIR/TEMP/TMP? Failure of R CMD check under Windows 7

[Ulrike Grömping]

Am 24.02.2013 23:50, schrieb Gabor Grothendieck:
> On Sun, Feb 24, 2013 at 4:00 PM, Ulrike Grömping
> <groemping at bht-berlin.de> wrote:
>> Dear helpeRs,
>>
>> on my Windows 7 laptop, I have problems getting R CMD check to work. I
>> believe it did work completely before, but I am not sure.
>>
>> Yesterday it almost worked, except for the tests: These were aborted because
>> of a complaint that the temporary directory wasn't available. I played with
>> windows environment variables for the temporary directory, but that didn't
>> solve it. Apparently I did something that made things worse:
>>
>> Today, R CMD check completely refuses to work, with the error message "Fatal
>> error: creation of tmpfile failed -- set TMPDIR suitably?" This is the same
>> for current R and R-devel. Changes to the TEMP or TMP environment variable
>> don't influence this behavior.
>>
>> The path:
>> C:\Rtools;C:\Program Files\Dell\DW WLAN Card;C:\Program
>> Files\R\R-2.15.2\bin;C:\Windows\system32;C:\Windows;C:\Windows\System32\Wbem;C:\Windows\System32\WindowsPowerShell\v1.0\;C:\Program
>> Files\Intel\OpenCL SDK\2.0\bin\x86;C:\Program Files\WIDCOMM\Bluetooth
>> Software\;C:\Program Files\Calibre2\;C:\Program Files\MiKTeX
>> 2.9\miktex\bin\;C:\Program Files\TortoiseSVN\bin
>>
>> Any ideas what I can do to fix this?
>> Perhaps also relevant: I run R CMD check from a DOS window that is opened
>> with administrator rights.
>>
> 1. Remove the paths to Rtools and to R in PATH since they don't look correct.
>
> 2. Enter this from the Windows cmd line:
> SET U
> SET T
>
> and it should show that TMP is set to %userprofile%\AppData\Local\Temp
> and that TEMP is set to the same thing and TMPDIR is not listed.
> If not change them so that it so reads.
>
> 3. Once you have done all the above then place this file anywhere on your path
>
> https://batchfiles.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/R.bat
>
> The following will find R using the registry or if its not there it
> will look in the usual places and then run it so you can then try:
>
> R.bat CMD ...whatever...
>
> If that still does not work proceed to the following manual alternative:
>
> 4. If the above did not fix the problem download this file
>
> https://batchfiles.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/Rpathset.bat
>
> 5. edit the SET statements in it and then place it on your Windows path.
>
> 6. Now run it from the cmd line:
>
> Rpathset.bat
>
> and for the rest of that cmd line session your path should be set up correctly.
>
>
> Also you might want to read:
>
> https://batchfiles.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/batchfiles.md
>
> There is also a new discussion group just set up at
> https://groups.google.com/forum/?fromgroups#!forum/sqldf
> that is also being used for the batchfiles.
Thanks, I followed your advice, and the check ran from the R.bat; also, 
the R Gui was usable again. After re-adding the paths to Rtools and R 
manually (I think they were correct anyway), I am back to the sunday 
state: R Gui runs fine, the check is run, except for the tests where the 
complaint is:
cannot open file 
'c:\Users\GROEMP~1\AppData\Local\Temp\Rtmp8kETwo\file15d8714c5215': 
Permission denied
(Of course, the proper path is with groemping instead of GROEMP~1; the 
abbreviation is done automatically by R CMD check or Windows.)

 From the Dos box, I can cd to that directory (both long name and 
abbreviated name), and there is a 0 byte file of the name in the 
complaint. From the Windows 7 Explorer, I don't know how to change to 
that directory, except for a search for the file name. Once I have found 
the file name, I can edit and change the file without being stopped from 
doing so, thus this does not seem to be an issue of write permissions.

Any idea how to fix this, without a re-installation (that might not fix 
it either, if I am unlucky)?
And, by the way, do others agree with Jeff's advice (thanks, Jeff!) that 
it is preferrable not to install and run R with administrator rights?

Best, Ulrike