[R] Fwd: CRAN problem with plyr-1.4.1

[Uwe Ligges]

On 12.04.2011 17:08, Ian Davis wrote:
> 2011/4/12 Uwe Ligges <ligges at statistik.tu-dortmund.de
> <mailto:ligges at statistik.tu-dortmund.de>>
>
>     On 12.04.2011 14:52, Ian Davis wrote:
>
>         I really do appreciate the help from you and Douglas on
>         resolving this
>         problem.  However, I respectfully disagree on a few points:
>
>         - install.packages() was broken and failing to install successfully.
>
>
>     install.packages() works well, it is *not* broken.
>
>
> Perhaps I was unclear in my choice of words -- install.packages() *is*
> not "broken" in the general sense;  it does work well, most of the
> time.  However, at the time I reported the problem, it *was* failing to
> install plyr, using three different mirrors.  That is,
>
>      install.packages("plyr")
>
> gave an error message and did not successfully install the package,
> whether I specified the mirror at CMU, NIH, or UNC-CH.  That's all I
> meant by "broken".  I understand that you believe this *should not* or
> even *cannot* happen, but I'm telling you that it did.  This may
> indicate there is a bug in the mirroring process, in that, under
> exceptional conditions yet to be identified, install.packages() et al.
> are unable to retrieve correct, consistent information from a mirror for
> a period of time.

Then, can we have the ERROR message, please?
Otherwise the only explanation I can guess is that a mirror grabs the 
contents of a repository exactly in the second the repository is updated 
and that is unlikely, particularly if more than one mirror is involved.


> Again, to be clear, I'm not protesting that the *newest* packages were
> unavailable on these three mirrors.  I'm protesting that *no version at
> all* of plyr was available from these three mirrors, using
> install.packages(), at the time I reported the problem.  I'll leave it
> at this -- I'm only trying to help out by reporting a bug in the
> process.  If no one cares, I'll shut up and sit down.

We do care, but the mirrors seem to be fine and hence we cannot debug 
what you have seen before.

Best,
Uwe


> Regards,
> Ian