[R] issue with update.packages(), library 'utils'

[Ivan Krylov]

В Fri, 17 Jul 2026 00:42:47 +0200
Iago via R-help <r-help using r-project.org> пишет:

> If the issue is due
> 
> |to the 'Last modified' / .builtData that apparently changes on the 
> repository every day, although the version numbers of packages are
> not changed |
> 
> should then be solved on CRAN side?

The build date is used as a proxy for all the binary-level dependencies
that the built packages may have separately from the source-level
dependencies [*]. Sometimes it's an unnecessary precaution and the
binary packages can be freely interchanged, ignoring the build dates.
Other times not reinstalling everything will lead to very confusing,
hard-to-debug errors. Maybe some day we'll have a different system that
doesn't reinstall packages out of abundance of caution, but it's not
easy to design properly.

-- 
Best regards,
Ivan

[*] https://stat.ethz.ch/pipermail/r-package-devel/2026q2/012419.html