[R-pkg-devel] Checking for future file timestamps - warning with worldclockapi HTTP status 403 Site Disabled

[Hadley Wickham]

It appears that the code was added by BDR on 2 Sep 2018:
https://github.com/wch/r-source/commit/d839b1e04e173f90b51ad809ef0bdb18095abe6f

I assume we are seeing failing R CMD check results because
http://worldclockapi.com/api/json/utc/now has recently died.

It would be appreciated if someone from R-core could look into this as
it's currently causing all R-devel builds on travis to fail.

Hadley

On Thu, Mar 7, 2019 at 9:32 AM Bob Rudis <bob using rud.is> wrote:
>
> (a) that's gd news (#ty)
> (b) genuine apologies for my confusion
> (c) why was the introduction of reliance on a third-party site even under consideration?
>
> > On Mar 7, 2019, at 09:32, peter dalgaard <pdalgd using gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > It's not "stealth fixed"! It was never there... (on the release branch)
> >
> > The timestamp checking code is still present in R-devel. I presume something needs to be done about the breakage.
> >
> > - pd
> >
> >> On 7 Mar 2019, at 14:38 , Bob Rudis <bob using rud.is> wrote:
> >>
> >> It's fixed in the RC that's GA on the 11th.
> >>
> >> I think perhaps "stealth fixed" may be more appropro since it's not in SVN logs, Bugzilla nor noted prominently in any of the various NEWS* files.
> >>
> >> Then there's the "why was the core R installation using a third party, non-HTTPS site for this to begin with".
> >>
> >> And, in other news, there are tests in the R source that rely on a check of `foo.bar` for connectivity. `.bar` is a valid domain and `foo.bar` is registered. Thankfully there's no current IP address associated with it. Anything under `*.invalid` (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.invalid) might be a better choice as well since that won't break the reason for the connectivity checks and won't arbitrarily send telemetry pings to third parties in the even anyone outside of R Core decides to run the tests (say, when patching something in R).
> >>
> >> -boB
> >>
> >>> On Mar 7, 2019, at 07:54, Rainer M Krug <Rainer using krugs.de> wrote:
> >>>
> >>> I can confirm the same when checking on travis with r-devel.
> >>>
> >>> And thanks for the tip with
> >>>
> >>> env:
> >>> - _R_CHECK_SYSTEM_CLOCK_=0
> >>>
> >>> In .travis.yml
> >>>
> >>> Seems to be working now
> >>>
> >>> Rainer
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>> On 7 Mar 2019, at 12:48, Ralf Herold <ralf.herold using mailbox.org> wrote:
> >>>>
> >>>> Dear All,
> >>>>
> >>>> Checking a new package under development produces a warning in a local R-devel MS Windows environment (output below).
> >>>>
> >>>> Building it with R-devel on Travis fails (because warnings are changed to errors), but is successful when setting environment variable _R_CHECK_SYSTEM_CLOCK_ to zero.
> >>>>
> >>>> No issue occurs when checking and building with R-stable and R-oldrel on Travis, or with any R version on win-builder.r-project.org.
> >>>>
> >>>> The warning concerns using http://worldclockapi.com/, which however seems out of service ("The web app you have attempted to reach is currently stopped and does not accept any requests."). This is referenced in the main function for R CMD check (https://svn.r-project.org/R/trunk/src/library/tools/R/check.R) and may concern more R-devel than R-package-devel. I am posting here to check if the issue was noticed by other package developers and to check the impact.
> >>>>
> >>>> Thanks for any suggestions.
> >>>> Best regards,
> >>>> Ralf
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>> PS C:\Users\username> & 'C:\Program Files\R\R-devel\bin\R.exe' CMD check E:\mypackage_0.1.2.3.tar.gz --as-cran
> >>>> * using log directory 'C:/Users/username/ctrdata.Rcheck'
> >>>> * using R Under development (unstable) (2019-03-05 r76200)
> >>>> * using platform: x86_64-w64-mingw32 (64-bit)
> >>>> * using session charset: ISO8859-1
> >>>> * using option '--as-cran'
> >>>> [...]
> >>>> * checking package directory ... OK
> >>>> * checking for future file timestamps ...Warning in file(con, "r") :
> >>>> cannot open URL 'http://worldclockapi.com/api/json/utc/now': HTTP status was '403 Site Disabled'
> >>>> WARNING
> >>>> unable to verify current time
> >>>> * checking 'build' directory … OK
> >>>> [...]
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>> ## Ralf Herold
> >>>> ## mailto: ralf.herold using mailbox.org [S/MIME]
> >>>> ## https://paediatricdata.eu/
> >>>>
> >>>> ______________________________________________
> >>>> R-package-devel using r-project.org mailing list
> >>>> https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-package-devel
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> --
> >>> Rainer M. Krug
> >>> email: Rainer<at>krugs<dot>de
> >>> PGP: 0x0F52F982
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>     [[alternative HTML version deleted]]
> >>>
> >>> ______________________________________________
> >>> R-package-devel using r-project.org mailing list
> >>> https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-package-devel
> >>
> >> ______________________________________________
> >> R-package-devel using r-project.org mailing list
> >> https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-package-devel
> >
> > --
> > Peter Dalgaard, Professor,
> > Center for Statistics, Copenhagen Business School
> > Solbjerg Plads 3, 2000 Frederiksberg, Denmark
> > Phone: (+45)38153501
> > Office: A 4.23
> > Email: pd.mes using cbs.dk  Priv: PDalgd using gmail.com
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
>
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