[R] Problems installing packages using the inbuilt facility: "Error i n gzfile(file, "r") : unable to open connection"

[Henrik Bengtsson]

Works fine for me on the same setup.  Try this and compare (especially
the size of the downloaded file):

> url <- "http://cran.uk.r-project.org/bin/windows/contrib/2.6/ada_2.0-1.zip";
> download.file(url, basename(url), mode="wb")  # Note "wb"!!!
trying URL 'http://cran.uk.r-project.org/bin/windows/contrib/2.6/ada_2.0-1.zip'
Content type 'application/zip' length 971893 bytes (949 Kb)
opened URL
downloaded 949 Kb
> file.info(basename(url))
                size isdir mode               mtime               ctime
ada_2.0-1.zip 971893 FALSE  666 2008-03-07 15:43:52 2008-03-07 15:43:28
                            atime exe
ada_2.0-1.zip 2008-03-07 15:43:52  no
> install.packages(basename(url), repos=NULL)
package 'ada' successfully unpacked and MD5 sums checked
updating HTML package descriptions
> library(ada)
Loading required package: rpart
>

/Henrik

On Fri, Mar 7, 2008 at 10:02 AM, Kauer, Philipp
<philipp.kauer at credit-suisse.com> wrote:
> Hi
>
>  I have been trawling the web, FAQs, and R manuals for help on the following issue, but have failed and was wondering if anyone has a solution to the following problem:
>
>  After having installed R 2.6.2 for Windows (binary), I tried to install various packages. Every time I try loading a package (any package) via the built-in menu, I run into the following error message.
>
>  > utils:::menuInstallPkgs()
>  trying URL 'http://cran.uk.r-project.org/bin/windows/contrib/2.6/ada_2.0-1.zip <http://cran.uk.r-project.org/bin/windows/contrib/2.6/ada_2.0-1.zip> '
>  Content type 'application/zip' length 971893 bytes (949 Kb)
>  opened URL
>  downloaded 949 Kb
>
>  Warning in gzfile(file, "r") :
>   cannot open compressed file 'ada/DESCRIPTION', probable reason 'No such file or directory'
>  Error in gzfile(file, "r") : unable to open connection
>  > traceback()
>  6: gzfile(file, "r")
>  5: read.dcf(file.path(curPkg, "DESCRIPTION"), c("Package", "Version",
>        "Type"))
>  4: unpackPkg(foundpkgs[okp, 2], foundpkgs[okp, 1], lib, installWithVers)
>  3: .install.winbinary(pkgs = pkgs, lib = lib, contriburl = contriburl,
>        method = method, available = available, destdir = destdir,
>        installWithVers = installWithVers, dependencies = dependencies)
>  2: install.packages(NULL, .libPaths()[1], dependencies = NA, type = type)
>  1: utils:::menuInstallPkgs()
>
>  I tried saving the ZIP  of the package to my C drive, and then installing from that, but I get the same error message. I then tried calling gzfile with the filename of the ZIP directly, and I seem to get a file handle without any error message:
>
>  gzfile("C:/Program Files/R/R-2.6.2/library/ada_2.0-1.zip","r")
>                                        description                                              class
>  "C:/Program Files/R/R-2.6.2/library/ada_2.0-1.zip"                                           "gzfile"
>                                               mode                                               text
>                                              "rb6"                                           "binary"
>                                             opened                                           can read
>                                           "opened"                                              "yes"
>                                          can write
>                                               "no"
>
>
>
>  It might be worth noting, that I initially I also had problems with the internet download facility, which I fixed starting R with the flag --internet2, as indicated in the FAQs.
>
>  Can you please help?
>
>  Many thanks - Philipp
>
>  PS: I did the same on my PC at home, and there everything works without problems.
>
>
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>
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