[R] R 2.10 under Windows XP: glitches and successes

[Ross Boylan]

On Wed, 2009-10-28 at 19:03 -0400, Duncan Murdoch wrote:
> > Second, install.packages("intervals") produced the usual line about
> > selecting a mirror, but no selection list popped up.  It just sat
> there
> > until I interrupted the session and reentered the command with a
> > pre-specified repos.  I selected custom install but took the
> defaults; I
> > noticed there was some optional tk/tcl stuff (which I did not
> select);
> > I'm guessing it's required for these selections.  Perhaps it should
> be
> > installed by default?
> 
> That's something I haven't seen before.  I do get the mirror dialog,
> and 
> it doesn't use tcl/tk, so I'd appreciate hearing if you can spot any 
> pattern here (including the pattern "I never get it").  (The install 
> option is about installing the tcl/tk help files:  mainly useful if 
> you're developing with tcl/tk, not necessary for most users.  The
> Tcl/tk 
> code itself is always installed.)  It could be that R is being
> blocked 
> by your anti-virus software; what it's trying to do is to read a list
> of 
> mirrors from
> 
> http://cran.r-project.org/CRAN_mirrors.csv
> 
> using the code in getCRANmirrors().  If that download fails or is 
> delayed forever, you won't get the selection list.
I see a pattern: the first time I try in a session (launched by M-x R in
emacs), it fails (i.e., nothing pops up and the R session does not
proceed).  Later times, it succeeds--every single time I've tried.  It
doesn't matter whether one uses the same package or different ones on
the later attempts.

I don't know if the window that comes up is Tk or not.

I don't see anything relevant in the *ESS* or *Messages* buffers.

Ross