[R] `install.packages()` and https proxy with R 4.5

[Lukas Schneiderbauer]

Thanks for the suggestions.

I tried "http_proxy", "https_proxy" and "all_proxy". All to no avail.

A colleague of mine still has the 4.4 version of R where everything works,
and she reports that getOption("download.file.method") reports "libcurl"
which leads me to believe that wininet was never used. Also "libcurl" is
reported now.

The package {pak} works and {pak} uses the package {curl} (which uses
libcurl) to download things as far as I can tell. When using
"curl::curl_download()" directly on the repository PACKAGES file, it also
works.
"download.file()" does give me an error. It really seems there is something
wrong with "download.file()". Or they are bundling/using different versions
of libcurl and libcurl has a bug in one of those?

On Thu, Oct 2, 2025, 08:24 Jan van der Laan <rhelp using eoos.dds.nl> wrote:

>
>
> On 30-09-2025 17:49, Jeroen Ooms wrote:
> > On Sun, Sep 28, 2025 at 10:45 AM Lukas Schneiderbauer
> > <lukas.schneiderbauer using gmail.com> wrote:
> >>
> >> Hi all,
> >>
> >> I work from a Windows 11 environment behind a firewall, and I require
> proxy
> >> settings to reach the (private) R package repository I work with.
> >> Using R 4.4 I used to set the environment variable "https_proxy" which
> led
> >> to e.g. "install.packages()" to work just fine.
> >
> >
> > Maybe also try some of the other variables mentioned in
> > https://curl.se/libcurl/c/libcurl-env.html
>
>
> That documentation mentions that 'http_proxy' is used for 'https://'
> addresses. Is that variable also set?
>
>
> I could also be that the proxy requires authentication with wininet this
> is often automatically done (I believe that was de default before R4.5).
> However, that doesn't explain why `method="curl"` would work. In that
> case you could try to set the proxy to `http_proxy=":@yourproxy"`.
>
> HTH,
> Jan
>
>
>
> >
> > ______________________________________________
> > R-help using r-project.org mailing list -- To UNSUBSCRIBE and more, see
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> > and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code.
>
> ______________________________________________
> R-help using r-project.org mailing list -- To UNSUBSCRIBE and more, see
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> PLEASE do read the posting guide
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> and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code.
>

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