[R] Version 3.2.3: package not available error with https

[Loris Bennett]

Duncan Murdoch <murdoch.duncan at gmail.com> writes:

> On 29/02/2016 6:09 AM, Loris Bennett wrote:
>> Hi,
>>
>> I recently installed version 3.2.3.  When I call
>>
>> install.packages("RCurl")
>>
>> I get a pop-up menu labelled "HTTPS CRAN Mirror" with a shortish list of
>> mirrors.  However, I don't seem to be able to reach any of these
>> mirrors, and always get an error like the following
>>
>> Error in download.file(url, destfile = f, quiet = TRUE) :
>>    unsupported URL scheme
>> Warning: unable to access index for repository https://cran.uni-muenster.de/src/contrib:
>>    unsupported URL scheme
>
> That error message suggests the problem is in your build, e.g. possibly an out
> of date or missing libcurl.  What does capabilities("libcurl") say?

FALSE

It seems that R needs libcurl 7.28.0, but my platform (Scientific Linux
6.7) only provides version 7.19.7.

Thanks for the pointer.

Loris

> Duncan Murdoch
>
>
>> Warning message:
>> package ‘RCurl’ is not available (for R version 3.2.3)
>>
>> If I choose the menu entry "(HTTP mirrors)" I get the list of HTTP
>> mirrors with which I am familiar from previous versions of R.  These
>> mirrors I can reach.
>>
>> I assume I have some local, probably firewall-related problem, but can
>> someone confirm that the HTTPS mirrors do indeed work?
>>
>> Cheers,
>>
>> Loris
>>

-- 
Dr. Loris Bennett (Mr.)
ZEDAT, Freie Universität Berlin         Email loris.bennett at fu-berlin.de