[R-SIG-Mac] strange segfault error in R from command-line on Mac laptop

[Jeffrey Rosenthal]

Hello.  I often use R from the command-line (i.e. just typing "R") 
within the "Terminal" application on my MacBook Pro laptop.  And 
sometimes I get a sudden strange error "*** caught segfault *** address 
0x10, cause 'memory not mapped'" (after which R allows me to 
abort/exit/etc, but not to continue).  It occurs when using the arrow or 
delete keys (perhaps related to readline?).  After much testing, I have 
found a very simple reproducible minimal example. Namely, if I start R 
from the command line, and then type "plot(0)", and then type any 
character (e.g. "a") and then the delete key, then it always triggers 
this error.  Does this error occur for anyone else?  Any ideas how to 
fix it?

I know that this problem is quite specific to my Mac laptop set-up; it 
does not occur on my iMac nor on my friend's Mac.  On the other hand, I 
did try upgrading R and that did not fix it.  My sessionInfo() output 
follows.  I am *not* saving R history, nor setting R_SAVEHIST, and I do 
*not* have any .Rhistory or .Rapp.history file in my directory.  Thank 
you very much for any suggestions!

--------------------------------------------

> sessionInfo()

R version 4.0.2 (2020-06-22)
Platform: x86_64-apple-darwin17.0 (64-bit)
Running under: macOS Catalina 10.15.7

Matrix products: default
BLAS:
/Library/Frameworks/R.framework/Versions/4.0/Resources/lib/libRblas.dylib
LAPACK:
/Library/Frameworks/R.framework/Versions/4.0/Resources/lib/libRlapack.dylib

locale:
[1] en_CA.UTF-8/en_CA.UTF-8/en_CA.UTF-8/C/en_CA.UTF-8/en_CA.UTF-8

attached base packages:
[1] stats     graphics  grDevices utils     datasets  methods   base

loaded via a namespace (and not attached):
[1] compiler_4.0.2

------------------------------------------------
   Jeffrey S. Rosenthal
   Professor of Statistics, University of Toronto
   Web site: http://probability.ca/jeff/