[R-SIG-Mac] [Rd] crash after using graphics in Rcmdr (PR#13679)

[John Fox]

Dear Rob,

Thanks for picking this up. Please see my remarks below:

On Fri, 01 May 2009 07:55:46 -0700
 Rob Goedman <goedman at mac.com> wrote:
> John,
> 
> To the best of my knowledge this problem in R.app has been around at
>  least since the R-2.8 days, but likely much longer. I never use R
> from  a Terminal, so don't know if it occurs or not outside R.app.

I figured that the Rcmdr wasn't directly implicated, but my guess was
that it was a tcltk issue, so this is very useful information. The
problem didn't occur for me outside of R.app, but then I wasn't using
the Quartz graphics device.

> 
> It's not related to Rcmdr and you're observation is indeed one of the
>  better ways to kind of reproduce the issue. Not sure if it always
> does  though. If you have a 'hard' way of crashing R.app, please let
> me know  the sequence. In cases when no output is written to the
> console of  R.app I tend to make sure I enter an empty line before
> closing the  graphics window.

This "works" for me every time: (1) In a fresh R.app session, load the
Rcmdr, library(Rcmdr). (2) "Data -> Data in packages -> Read data set
from an attached package." Pick any data set. I used Prestige from the
car package. (3) Draw any graph on the Quartz device. I used "Graphs ->
Histogram" and selected education. Close the Quartz device, and watch
the crash.

I hope that this proves of some use in diagnosing the problem.

> 
> This issue and sometimes very long sequences of plots (never have
> been  able to make that reproducible, sometimes the crash happens up
> to a  minute after R finishes a series of plots and I'm working in an
>  external editor like TextMate) are hard to pin down.
> 
> Regards,
> Rob
> 
> Note: Hope you don't mind I've removed the R-bugs & R-devel Cc's.

No -- this is more natural on r-sig-mac.

Thanks for your help,
 John

> 
> On Apr 30, 2009, at 6:29 AM, John Fox wrote:
> 
> > Dear Neil,
> >
> > I had R 2.8.0 installed on my Mac Book, also with OS X 10.5.6, and
> was
> > unable to duplicate this problem. I then installed R 2.9.0 and  
> > observed the
> > same problem that you did. In both cases, I used the latest version
>  
> > of the
> > Rcmdr package, 1.4-10.
> >
> > I also observed the following: (1) The problem occurred only if I  
> > closed the
> > Quartz graphics device after the first graph was plotted; if I
> plotted
> > another graph and then closed the device, the problem did not
> occur.  
> > (2) The
> > problem did not occur if I ran R from a terminal with an X11  
> > graphics device
> > rather than using R.app.
> >
> > I'm afraid that there's not much more that I can do at this point,
>  
> > since my
> > familiarity with Macs is minimal. I'm copying this message to Rob  
> > Goedman,
> > who has proven helpful in the past. Of course, if there's something
>  
> > in the
> > Rcmdr that's causing the problem and I can fix it, I will.
> >
> > Regards,
> > John
> >
> >
> >> -----Original Message-----
> >> From: r-devel-bounces at r-project.org
> [mailto:r-devel-bounces at r-project.org 
> >> ]
> > On
> >> Behalf Of nhepburn at ualberta.ca
> >> Sent: April-28-09 1:25 PM
> >> To: r-devel at stat.math.ethz.ch
> >> Cc: R-bugs at r-project.org
> >> Subject: [Rd] crash after using graphics in Rcmdr (PR#13679)
> >>
> >> Full_Name: Neil Hepburn
> >> Version: 2.81 and 2.90
> >> OS: OS-X 10.5.6
> >> Submission from: (NULL) (142.244.28.93)
> >>
> >>
> >> When I create graphs using Rcmdr and then close the quartz
> display, R
> > blows
> >> up
> >> and tells me of a segmentation fault. It then gives me
> >> *** caught segfault ***
> >> address 0xc0000023, cause 'memory not mapped'
> >>
> >> Possible actions:
> >> 1: abort (with core dump, if enabled)
> >> 2: normal R exit
> >> 3: exit R without saving workspace
> >> 4: exit R saving workspace
> >>>
> >> Selection:
> >>
> >> This only happens if I create the graphics from within Rcmdr. If I
>  
> >> create
> > the
> >> graphics manually, there is no problem. This occurs on my laptop  
> >> with R
> > 2.8.1
> >> (I
> >> uninstalled 2.9 and reinstall 2.8.1 to see if the problem existed
>  
> >> there)
> > and
> >> also on my iMac with R2.9.
> >>
> >> ______________________________________________
> >> R-devel at r-project.org mailing list
> >> https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-devel
> >
> >
> 

--------------------------------
John Fox, Professor
Department of Sociology
McMaster University
Hamilton, Ontario, Canada
http://socserv.mcmaster.ca/jfox/