[R] Help with strange RGui behavior? Will not consistently run source.

[Stephen Hartley]

So I've got an odd problem that I can't seem to nail down, and I'm not
totally sure even where I should go to ask about it. Hopefully this mailing
list is acceptable, and please do let me know if not.

I'm using the "Rgui.exe" interface for R in windows 10. I've used this for
more than a decade now with no problems, and for at least a year on this
computer specifically. But now, when I click "Run line or selection" or
equivalently use CTRL+R, it only sometimes runs the selection.
Specifically: the FIRST time I attempt to run any given selection, it

This issue only appears when I drag to select a snippet of text. It works
fine when I simply click on a line without selecting it. However, if I drag
and select a region of code and hit the command, the selection stops being
selected but it does not run the code. If I then drag and select the exact
same code a second time and do it again, it runs normally. If instead of
running the same code again I attempt to select different code, it once
again does not run.

Here's the really odd bit: this affects multiple installations of R. I have
multiple versions of R installed on my machine for testing purposes (R
3.4.4, 3.6.1, and 4.1.2), and this issue suddenly appeared simultaneously
on all three.

I've tested it hundreds of times in various situations on all three
installations and it is extremely consistent but utterly unreproducible. I
have a second computer with R installed that works normally, and I have
tried doing the exact same thing on that computer and it behaves as
expected.

It's not a hotkey capture issue or a hardware since it doesn't matter if I
use the hotkey or use the right-click menu. So far as I can tell nothing
else has changed. Are there hidden options in Rgui, or is there like an
Rprofile file or something somewhere that all the R installations will run
on startup? Are there R commands that alter options in the gui itself?

I'm not even sure who I should contact or what list I should use, since
this isn't really an issue with the R programming language itself but
rather an issue with the GUI. The issue doesn't involve any keywords that I
can think of to search for others with the same issue ("run R on selection"
appears a lot in unrelated pages).

Best,
Steve Hartley
Staff scientist, National Cancer Institute

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