[R-SIG-Mac] Problems with RStudio for mac

Thu Jul 17 05:10:46 CEST 2025

José,

Yes, this is a bug in the Positron build (here its Jupyter kernel) - it doesn’t really support the macOS version it claims - that particular symbol was introduced in macOS 12 SDK, so it requires at least that version if not higher, so the claim on the website is false - thus not really an alternative. As Kevin signalled, it seems Posit is ok with dropping Intel Mac support so, unfortunately, the only two options are either to downgrade R + RStudio or use latest R with another GUI.

Cheers,
Simon

> On 17/07/2025, at 13:09, José Carlos Guerrero Antúnez <jcgantunez using gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> Thanks Bill for the recommendation.
> I installed Positron but I got this message, it doesn't seem to connect with R.
> 
> R 4.5.1 failed to start up (exit code -1)
> 
> The kernel exited before a connection could be established
> dyld: Symbol not found: __ZTTNSt3__118basic_stringstreamIcNS_11char_traitsIcEENS_9allocatorIcEEEE
> Referenced from: /Applications/Positron.app/Contents/Resources/app/extensions/positron-r/resources/ark/ark
> Expected in: /usr/lib/libc++.1.dylib
> in /Applications/Positron.app/Contents/Resources/app/extensions/positron-r/resources/ark/ark
> 
> El mié, 16 jul 2025 a las 7:14, <bill+rsigmac using 8pawexpress.com> escribió:
> I’m neither a Posit/RStudio employee/dev nor do I use their IDEs atm, but … while RStudio IDE requires MacOS 13+, the “next-gen” IDE from Posit is Positron, and it allegedly depends only on MacOS 10.15+ with universal, intel, and arm64 binaries. See https://positron.posit.co/download.html.
> I’ve played briefly with it, and while I’m an avid emacs/ess user (never been much for RStudio IDE itself), the Positron experience is getting much closer to what I hope for. There are discussions on migrating (keyboard shortcuts, mental assumptions, etc) from RStudio IDE to reduce the change, and I believe there are few things one can do in RStudio that are not also feasible in Positron.
> Good luck,
> Bill
> On 7/15/25 18:36, Simon Urbanek wrote:
>> José,
>> 
>> I agree that latest RStudio dropping support for a very large number of Macs is unfortunate. It may be worth raising it with Posit - we have very deliberately not increased the macOS version requirement of R binaries, because it would affect way too may R users based on the estimates from weblogs (as Intel Mac owners simply cannot upgrade).
>> 
>> That said, in the meantime you can install any older R version as well - see 
>> 
>> https://cran.r-project.org/bin/macosx/big-sur-x86_64/base/
>> 
>> to match the last working RStudio to see if it will work for your use case.
>> 
>> Of course, for regular work you can switch to the Mac GUI which always supports the same macOS version as R, or any of the other GUI alternatives that don’t embed R.
>> 
>> Cheers,
>> Simon
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>>> On 16/07/2025, at 02:37, José Carlos Guerrero Antúnez <jcgantunez using gmail.com> wrote:
>>> 
>>> Thanks Kevin and Roy,
>>> I work with two old Macs with the BigSur operating system (one at home and
>>> one at school) and I can't upgrade, which prevents me from having the
>>> newest version of RStudio because it doesn't meet the requirements.
>>> I wanted to install the caretSDM package, on the Mac at home I had version
>>> 4.3.3 and the package recommended me to use a newer version of R and I
>>> upgraded to version 4.5.1. In the case of the faculty Mac I am using
>>> version R.4.4.0 and I have no problem with the caretSDM package.
>>> From my ignorance I dare to say that there is a package that is generating
>>> the conflict with R version 4.5.1.
>>> 
>>> Best regards,
>>> 
>>> El mar, 15 jul 2025 a las 1:02, roy (<rollinforall using gmail.com>) escribió:
>>> 
>>> 
>>>> Hi José
>>>> fwiw, I tried R 4.5.1 on my macmini (15.5, Intel) with an old version of
>>>> RStudio and received the same similar error you reported. When I updated
>>>> to the latest RStudio (Version 2025.05.1+513 (2025.05.1+513)) my quick test
>>>> (matrix multiplication) worked without error.
>>>> 
>>>> cheers, roy
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> On Mon, Jul 14, 2025 at 8:42 PM Kevin Ushey <kevinushey using gmail.com> wrote:
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>>> Did you already try installing the latest available release of RStudio? In
>>>>> general, R and RStudio should be upgraded together.
>>>>> 
>>>>> If you still have problems with the latest release of RStudio, you should
>>>>> file a big report at https://github.com/rstudio/rstudio/issues.
>>>>> 
>>>>> On Mon, Jul 14, 2025, 6:54 PM José Carlos Guerrero Antúnez <
>>>>> jcgantunez using gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>> 
>>>>> 
>>>>>> Thank you Jeff for your suggestions, I will keep them in mind.
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> El lun, 14 jul 2025 a las 22:45, Jeff Newmiller (<
>>>>>> 
>>>>> jdnewmil using dcn.davis.ca.us
>>>>> 
>>>>>>> )
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>> escribió:
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> R is maintained by the volunteer R Core group, while RStudio is
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>> maintained
>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> by Posit. You may get more thorough help with RStudio if you ask at
>>>>>>> 
>>>>> the
>>>>> 
>>>>>>> Posit forum.
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> That said, as a rule the RStudio team has to play "catch-up" when R is
>>>>>>> upgraded by R Core. You may be running an older version of RStudio
>>>>>>> 
>>>>> that
>>>>> 
>>>>>>> does not know how to deal with R 4.5.1. Check for a newer version of
>>>>>>> RStudio, or try uninstalling R 4.5.1 and re-installing an older
>>>>>>> 
>>>>> version
>>>>> 
>>>>>>> R... or try using R with a different text editor (there are a lot of
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>> them).
>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> RStudio is a fine option, but it is not the only way to use R.
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> On July 14, 2025 5:54:47 PM PDT, "José Carlos Guerrero Antúnez" <
>>>>>>> jcgantunez using gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>> Hi,
>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>> I am not sure if this is the right forum for this query, and I
>>>>>>>> 
>>>>> apologize
>>>>> 
>>>>>>> in
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>> advance.
>>>>>>>> I recently upgraded to version R 4.5.1, and I use the RStudio
>>>>>>>> 
>>>>> program. I
>>>>> 
>>>>>>>> can open it without any problem, but I am experiencing crashes
>>>>>>>> 
>>>>> whenever
>>>>> 
>>>>>> I
>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>> perform any action in the program. I receive the following message:
>>>>>>>> "R Session Aborted. R encountered a fatal error. The session was
>>>>>>>> terminated. Start New Session."
>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>> Could you please recommend what I should do?
>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>> Thank you very much
>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>> [[alternative HTML version deleted]]
>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>>>>>> R-SIG-Mac mailing list
>>>>>>>> R-SIG-Mac using r-project.org
>>>>>>>> https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-sig-mac
>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> --
>>>>>>> Sent from my phone. Please excuse my brevity.
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>> --
>>>>>> José Carlos Guerrero
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> [[alternative HTML version deleted]]
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> _______________________________________________
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>>>>>> 
>>>>>> 
>>>>> [[alternative HTML version deleted]]
>>>>> 
>>>>> _______________________________________________
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>>>>> 
>>>>> 
>>> -- 
>>> José Carlos Guerrero
>>> 
>>> [[alternative HTML version deleted]]
>>> 
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>>> 
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> 
> 
> 
> -- 
> José Carlos Guerrero