[R] Package installation help: Stuck at "** byte-compile and prepare package for lazy loading"

[Brodie, Kent]

Bill--   BINGO.    You have found the answer.     After some testing on one of my environments where it was always hanging, connecting to the same server with an X-Sever running on my workstation did indeed allow the package to be installed.

**GOOD LORD THAT’S RIDICULOUS**   But---- at least I know.    And why it doesn’t error out without X running, who knows.

After a ton more research, I ALSO discovered that there IS a timeout thing I can make use of, should I decide to continue just building things and ignoring the X-Server requirement for this (and probably some other?) packages.

Before executing R and installing things, set this:

export _R_INSTALL_PACKAGES_ELAPSED_TIMEOUT_=500

(value is seconds).   So, the previously-hanging R CMD INSTALL inside of the install.packages call will eventually die, and then move on to the next package.
This is buried in the documentation but- it’s there and I confirmed it works.    My example above times out a package install  at 5 minutes.

While knowing the X requirement is a huge win (thanks again!), I will probably stick with just using the timeout thing for what I’m trying to accomplish.    Installing EVERYTHING from cran will take forever, and more than likely my VPN connection to my data center will be disconnected (thank you internal IT department) before it finishes.    They have some sort of internal “you’ve been connected too long” timer that disconnects things overnight.   Grr.


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