.Rprofile results in corruption of .RData? (PR#346)

[Rashid Nassar]

Here is a minimum set of instructions to reproduce the problem on my 
computer:

1. remove/rename any .Rprofile in home or current directories.

2. rename .RData file

3. copy Rprofile (the "original" Rprofile that came with R-0.90 when R was
   untarred/compiled/installed) to the home directory.

4. rename ~/Rprofile to ~/.Rprofile.  

(I'm trying to ensure that neither of my existing .Rprofile and .RData files 
are involved in the test, and that only the "distribution" Rprofile, when 
copied to the home directory and renamed to .Rprofile is the trigger for 
the problem, i.e. simply the existence of a valid .Rprofile file)

5. Run R, then q() and save .RData  (or save.image() and then quite 
without further saving upon quitting.)  (It makes no difference if you did 
anything within R, or whether you simply saved an 'empty' file)

6. Run R again.  It cannot read .RData and aborts.

7. Remove .Rprofile and .RData and run, quit (to make a new .RData) and 
run it again, and it works perfectly.

I hope this helps, and as I said, I'd be glad to try out specific
instructions on my computer or try to answer any questions.  I have a
vague recollection that a few versions earlier, I had a problem that I
solved by using as ~/.Rprofile a copy of Rprofile that came with the new
version, and that solved the problem at that time.)

Thank you and best regards,

Rashid

On 27 Nov 1999, Peter Dalgaard BSA wrote:

> Date: 27 Nov 1999 12:22:18 +0100
> From: Peter Dalgaard BSA <p.dalgaard@biostat.ku.dk>
> To: rnassar@duke.edu
> Cc: r-devel@stat.math.ethz.ch, R-bugs@biostat.ku.dk
> Subject: Re: .Rprofile results in corruption of .RData? (PR#346)
> 
> rnassar@duke.edu writes:
> 
> > It could be that the following may be due to something wrong that I
> > managed to do (I cannot think what...) but I submit this report in
> > case it is something that you want to know about (I have solved the
> > problem by removing .Rprofile as I describe below).
> 
> We've had a similar problem report before, but it was nearly
> impossible to investigate because all there was to go on was the
> corrupted .RData (which, incidentally was readable after changing the
> error() in OffsetToNode to a warning(), something we should perhaps
> make permanent?)
> 
> This could be an important lead on an elusive bug. Do you think that
> you could provide a minimal set of instructions that reproduce the
> situation? (As it stands, I cannot see whether it happens to you
> because of a particular call in .Rprofile, because of a specific mix
> of settings, or simply because .Rprofile has been called at all.)
> 
> -- 
>    O__  ---- Peter Dalgaard             Blegdamsvej 3  
>   c/ /'_ --- Dept. of Biostatistics     2200 Cph. N   
>  (*) \(*) -- University of Copenhagen   Denmark      Ph: (+45) 35327918
> ~~~~~~~~~~ - (p.dalgaard@biostat.ku.dk)             FAX: (+45) 35327907
> 
> 

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