[R] help diagnosing ftp problem

[Liaw, Andy]

Dear R-help,

I've been compiling R from source on our Linux boxes for quite a while.  One
thing that bugs me is that I always get an error when make check-all where
it choked up running tests/internet.R.  That wasn't a big deal, as I can run
install.packages()/update.packages() fine, and that's all I use the 'net
connection for.  The problem is that it takes a _long_ time to fail
internet.R.

I dug in just a bit more this time (that I was sufficiently annoyed).  The
problem is:

> read.table("ftp://ftp.stats.ox.ac.uk/pub/datasets/csb/ch11b.dat")
Error in file(file, "r") : unable to open connection

I tried running the line in an interactive R session, and sure enough, it
takes more than 10 minutes before I see the error.  I do have both HTTP and
FTP proxy set (to the same URL), and ftp (e.g., to CRAN) works outside of R.
Can anyone provide some hints as to what the problem might be, or where to
look?

Best,
Andy

Andy Liaw, PhD
Biometrics Research      PO Box 2000, RY33-300     
Merck Research Labs           Rahway, NJ 07065
andy_liaw <at> merck.com          732-594-0820