[R] problem with install.packages and update.packages

[Renaud Lancelot]

Dear all,

I am working with MS Windows XP Pro (latest update) and a pre-compiled 
version of R:

 > version
          _
platform i386-pc-mingw32
arch     i386
os       mingw32
system   i386, mingw32
status
major    1
minor    8.1
year     2003
month    11
day      21
language R

I meet a strange problem with install.packages and update.packages 
(called from the menu), that did not occur until today:

######

 > local({a <- CRAN.packages()
+ install.packages(select.list(a[,1],,TRUE), .libPaths()[1], available=a)})
trying URL `http://cran.r-project.org/bin/windows/contrib/1.8/PACKAGES'
Error in download.file(url = paste(contriburl, "PACKAGES", sep = "/"),  :
         cannot open URL 
`http://cran.r-project.org/bin/windows/contrib/1.8/PACKAGES'
In addition: Warning message:
InternetOpenUrl failed: `'


 > update.packages()
trying URL `http://cran.r-project.org/bin/windows/contrib/1.8/PACKAGES'
Error in download.file(url = paste(contriburl, "PACKAGES", sep = "/"),  :
         cannot open URL 
`http://cran.r-project.org/bin/windows/contrib/1.8/PACKAGES'
In addition: Warning message:
InternetOpenUrl failed: `'

######

I still can access http://www.r-project.org/ and any of its section 
(including download) with my browser:

Mozilla 1.6
Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; fr-FR; rv:1.6) Gecko/20040113

The only thing I recently changed on my computer was to update Mozilla 
(from 1.5 to 1.6).

Any hint will be highly appreciated.

Best regards,

Renaud
-- 
Dr Renaud Lancelot, vétérinaire
C/0 Ambassade de France - SCAC
BP 834 Antananarivo 101 - Madagascar

e-mail: renaud.lancelot at cirad.fr
tel.:   +261 32 04 824 55 (cell)
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