[R] Fatal error .RData

[Duncan Murdoch]

On 18/09/2008 9:41 AM, Green, Paul wrote:
> We are using R in our class. One student claims to
> be receiving the message
> 
> "Fatal error: unable to restore saved data in .RData"
> 
> The student is working in a Windows environment with Vista
> using the precompiled binary distribution (R-2.7.2).
> 
> After searching the R site and reading FAQs, I suggested
> the student find .RData in the working directory and delete it.
> 
> The student claims this did not work so I recommended starting
> R from a command line with the --no-restore option.
> 
> Has anyone had any experience with this? Does anyone know
> what may be causing this? This is the first time I have
> encountered this.

Your advice was right:  something is wrong with .RData, and the solution 
is not to try to read it.

Likely if deleting .RData failed to solve the problem, it's because the 
wrong one was deleted.  But running with --no-restore will skip reading 
what's there, and saving the workspace will probably overwrite the right 
one (assuming the student has the necessary file system permissions to 
do that).

Duncan Murdoch