[R] Cannot update.packages (error message)

[Uwe Ligges]

Richardson, Patrick wrote:
> When trying to update (various) packages using update.packages() I get the following error message for various packages
> 
> package 'fBasics' successfully unpacked and MD5 sums checked
> Error in unpackPkg(foundpkgs[okp, 2L], foundpkgs[okp, 1L], lib) :
>   malformed bundle DESCRIPTION file, no Contains field


Can you try to reinstall (with install.packages()) all your installed 
package *bundles* (the 8 on CRAN are VR, CoCo, dse, hoa, gregmisc, 
BACCO, empiricalBayes, forecasting). I hope update packages will work 
again afterwards.

Best wishes,
Uwe Ligges




> This happens with other packages besides fBasics (Matrix, as well as others) and I have switched mirrors and the same thing occurs.
> 
> Any suggestions?
> 
> Best regards,
> 
> Patrick
> Win XP SP3
> 
> R version 2.9.0 (2009-04-17)
> i386-pc-mingw32
> 
> locale:
> LC_COLLATE=English_United States.1252;LC_CTYPE=English_United States.1252;LC_MONETARY=English_United States.1252;LC_NUMERIC=C;LC_TIME=English_United States.1252
> 
> attached base packages:
> [1] stats     graphics  grDevices datasets  tcltk     utils     methods   base
> 
> other attached packages:
> [1] svSocket_0.9-5 TinnR_1.0.3    R2HTML_1.59-1  Hmisc_3.5-2
> 
> loaded via a namespace (and not attached):
> [1] cluster_1.11.13 grid_2.9.0      lattice_0.17-22 svMisc_0.9-5    tools_2.9.0
> 
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