[R] update.packages() fails due to searching for old versions of packages

[Duncan Murdoch]

This was a problem on the CRAN macOS site.  Once Simon was informed 
about it, he fixed it.  I tested e1071 and it's fine for me, but he said 
some mirrors may take a while to catch up, so if you still see the 
error, try the https://mac.r-project.org mirror.

Duncan Murdoch


On 2025-12-21 5:11 a.m., Duncan Murdoch wrote:
> I see the same thing in R 4.5.2 on MacOS Sequoia 15.7.2.  The problem
> happens in install.packages() as well, e.g. I get the same error with
> 
>     install.packages("e1071")
> 
> A workaround is to ask for `type="source"`, as long as you're prepared
> to recompile the new package.
> 
> I think the issue is that there is no binary available for the latest
> 1.7-17 version.  The database says the binary for 1.7-16 is available,
> but in fact it is not.
> 
> Duncan Murdoch
> 
> On 2025-12-20 2:30 p.m., Michael McQuaid wrote:
>> When I try to update packages, the package manager appears to search for
>> old versions of the packages, despite seemingly knowing about the existence
>> of newer versions. Here is an example where I try to update the e1071
>> package and it seems to recognize that the current version is 1.7-17 but
>> then searches for and fails to find 1.7-16. This happens for every package
>> I try to update, I've just included one here for brevity. I have tried
>> several mirrors including wustl, utk, and iastate. I wonder if there is
>> some file on my system pointing to the old version. I also tried updating
>> from R 4.5.1 to 4.5.2, but the issue persists. I am on macOS Tahoe 26.2 on
>> an M1 Macbook Pro.
>>
>> $ Rscript -e 'update.packages(oldPkgs=c("e1071"))'
>> e1071 :
>>    Version 1.7-16 installed in /Users/mm223266/Library/R/arm64/4.5/library
>>    Version 1.7-17 available at https://cloud.r-project.org
>> Update? (Yes/no/cancel)
>> trying URL '
>> https://cloud.r-project.org/bin/macosx/big-sur-arm64/contrib/4.5/e1071_1.7-16.tgz
>> '
>> Error in download.file(urls, destfiles, "libcurl", mode = "wb", ...) :
>>     cannot open URL '
>> https://cloud.r-project.org/bin/macosx/big-sur-arm64/contrib/4.5/e1071_1.7-16.tgz
>> '
>> In addition: Warning messages:
>> 1: In download.file(urls, destfiles, "libcurl", mode = "wb", ...) :
>>     downloaded length 0 != reported length 279
>> 2: In download.file(urls, destfiles, "libcurl", mode = "wb", ...) :
>>     cannot open URL '
>> https://cloud.r-project.org/bin/macosx/big-sur-arm64/contrib/4.5/e1071_1.7-16.tgz':
>> HTTP status was '404 Not Found'
>> Warning in download.packages(pkgs, destdir = tmpd, available = available,  :
>>     download of package ‘e1071’ failed
>>
>> 	[[alternative HTML version deleted]]
>>
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>