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R hangs on startup

11 messages · David Winsemius, William Dunlap, John Fox +3 more

Original
Vineet Gupta
# 
Hi,

I have been struggling with this problem with for 2 weeks, but have yet to find a solution on Google.

I am running R 3.3.3 on Windows 10. For the past 2 weeks, when I open R (and RStudio), the R screen freezes and is unusable. Nothing has changed, to trigger this event. I have tried re-installing the software, and downgrading to an older version of R. Nothing seems to work.

If someone could help me, then I would very much appreciate it. At this point, I am at a loss.

Rgds,
Vineet
David Winsemius
# 
Startup difficulties are often the result of a corrupted ,Rdata or .Rhistory file. These are generally hidden files, so you may need to learn how to delete such "dot-files" or whatever term is used to describe files that do no appear on your OS file browser. I don't know where the Windows version of RStudio keeps these files.
Rhelp is a plain text mailing list.
David Winsemius
Alameda, CA, USA
Vineet Gupta
# 
David,

Thx for the quick reply. Firstly, apologies for using windows - I need to
switch to Linux!

Do you have any suggestion of a suitable website, that may cover how to do
this? I will look on Google, but I generally find that to be a time
intensive, and low reward endeavour.

Rgds,
Vineet

-----Original Message-----
From: David Winsemius [mailto:dwinsemius at comcast.net] 
Sent: 03 April 2017 05:03
To: Vineet Gupta <lakestay at hotmail.com>
Cc: r-help at r-project.org
Subject: Re: [R] R hangs on startup
find a solution on Google.
(and RStudio), the R screen freezes and is unusable. Nothing has changed, to
trigger this event. I have tried re-installing the software, and downgrading
to an older version of R. Nothing seems to work.
point, I am at a loss.
Startup difficulties are often the result of a corrupted ,Rdata or .Rhistory
file. These are generally hidden files, so you may need to learn how to
delete such "dot-files" or whatever term is used to describe files that do
no appear on your OS file browser. I don't know where the Windows version of
RStudio keeps these files.
Rhelp is a plain text mailing list.
David Winsemius
Alameda, CA, USA
William Dunlap
# 
Starting R with the --vanilla flag will cause it to ignore startup
files.  This is usually a quicker way to rule out such issues than
tracking down where the startup files are stored.  'R --help' tells
about other command line arguments that help home in on which file may
be the problem.

  --no-environ          Don't read the site and user environment files
  --no-site-file        Don't read the site-wide Rprofile
  --no-init-file        Don't read the user R profile
  --restore             Do restore previously saved objects at startup
  --no-restore-data     Don't restore previously saved objects
  --no-restore-history  Don't restore the R history file
  --no-restore          Don't restore anything
  --vanilla             Combine --no-save, --no-restore, --no-site-file,
                        --no-init-file and --no-environ

I don't know of a good way to make R report exactly which file it is
processing as it starts up.  Should --verbose do that?
John Fox
# 
Dear Vineet,
It's not obvious that your problem is OS-specific, nor is it necessarily the case that your problem is a bad .RData or .Rhistory file, though it's worth trying to delete them.

BTW, does R work properly outside of RStudio?
Generally R will save the workspace on exit (if you ask it to) in the working directory. Under RStudio this would normally be the directory of your current project, or, if you're not using a project and haven't changed your working directory, in your Documents folder.

You're looking for files named .RData (the workspace) and .Rhistory. The former may be hidden in Windows Explorer  if you don't display known-to-Windows file extensions, but you'll still see the R icon. .Rhistory isn't a registered extension and should appear in any event. Right click on these files and delete them.

It's generally a good idea *not* to hide file extensions. In the Windows Explorer "View" tab, check "File name extensions."

I hope this helps,
 John

-----------------------------
John Fox, Professor
McMaster University
Hamilton, Ontario
Canada L8S 4M4
Web: socserv.mcmaster.ca/jfox
Vineet Gupta
# 
John,

R does not work properly, outside of RStudio.

Vineet

-----Original Message-----
From: Fox, John [mailto:jfox at mcmaster.ca] 
Sent: 03 April 2017 17:56
To: Vineet Gupta <vineetgupta410 at gmail.com>
Cc: r-help at r-project.org; 'David Winsemius' <dwinsemius at comcast.net>
Subject: RE: [R] R hangs on startup

Dear Vineet,
It's not obvious that your problem is OS-specific, nor is it necessarily the
case that your problem is a bad .RData or .Rhistory file, though it's worth
trying to delete them.

BTW, does R work properly outside of RStudio?
Generally R will save the workspace on exit (if you ask it to) in the
working directory. Under RStudio this would normally be the directory of
your current project, or, if you're not using a project and haven't changed
your working directory, in your Documents folder.

You're looking for files named .RData (the workspace) and .Rhistory. The
former may be hidden in Windows Explorer  if you don't display
known-to-Windows file extensions, but you'll still see the R icon. .Rhistory
isn't a registered extension and should appear in any event. Right click on
these files and delete them.

It's generally a good idea *not* to hide file extensions. In the Windows
Explorer "View" tab, check "File name extensions."

I hope this helps,
 John

-----------------------------
John Fox, Professor
McMaster University
Hamilton, Ontario
Canada L8S 4M4
Web: socserv.mcmaster.ca/jfox
Vineet Gupta
# 
Hi,

Thanks to all of your answers. I have found that when I open a code file
with RStudio, it opens correctly, and the R session appears to work ok.

However, when I startup and R session or an RStudio session, then the R
session hangs.

I will try the other suggestions below to see if I can solve the problem.

Vineet


-----Original Message-----
From: Fox, John [mailto:jfox at mcmaster.ca] 
Sent: 03 April 2017 17:56
To: Vineet Gupta <vineetgupta410 at gmail.com>
Cc: r-help at r-project.org; 'David Winsemius' <dwinsemius at comcast.net>
Subject: RE: [R] R hangs on startup

Dear Vineet,
It's not obvious that your problem is OS-specific, nor is it necessarily the
case that your problem is a bad .RData or .Rhistory file, though it's worth
trying to delete them.

BTW, does R work properly outside of RStudio?
Generally R will save the workspace on exit (if you ask it to) in the
working directory. Under RStudio this would normally be the directory of
your current project, or, if you're not using a project and haven't changed
your working directory, in your Documents folder.

You're looking for files named .RData (the workspace) and .Rhistory. The
former may be hidden in Windows Explorer  if you don't display
known-to-Windows file extensions, but you'll still see the R icon. .Rhistory
isn't a registered extension and should appear in any event. Right click on
these files and delete them.

It's generally a good idea *not* to hide file extensions. In the Windows
Explorer "View" tab, check "File name extensions."

I hope this helps,
 John

-----------------------------
John Fox, Professor
McMaster University
Hamilton, Ontario
Canada L8S 4M4
Web: socserv.mcmaster.ca/jfox
John
# 
On Sun, 2 Apr 2017 21:30:54 +0000
Vineet Gupta <lakestay at hotmail.com> wrote:

            

      
      
      
    

        
When you say you start R AND R-Studio but the R screen freezes, are you
saying that R-Studio freezes, or is a separate instance of R freezing,
or?  From your post this is not precisely clear.

JWDougherty

  
  


  


      

    

    

      
      

        


  

        

      John
    

    

      
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On Mon, 3 Apr 2017 18:06:06 +0100

        
"Vineet Gupta" <vineetgupta410 at gmail.com> wrote:

        

            

      
      
      
    

        
That is what I thought you might be saying.  Does it work outside
if RStudio is not loaded?  Windows can occasionally be flaky
about multiple instances of a single program. 

John

  
  


  


      

    

    

      
      

        


  

        

      William Dunlap
    

    

      
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Does R work if started with the --vanilla flag?
(Add it after ...\Rgui.exe in the Target line of
the Windows shortcut or on the command line.)
Bill Dunlap
TIBCO Software
wdunlap tibco.com

        
On Tue, Apr 4, 2017 at 1:53 PM, John <jwd at surewest.net> wrote:

            

      
      
      
    

        

      
      
    

  
  


  


      

    

    

      
      

        


  

        

      Jeff Newmiller
    

    

      
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John... I run multiple instances of R and RStudio on Win7 regularly. About the only poor behaviour I encounter has to do with updating packages used by those other instances.

However, I would never run R as Administrator under Windows. Too many bad things can happen if you do that. 

Vineet... please be specific about what command line you are using that leads to trouble. Look in the shortcut properties to figure this out if that is how you are starting it. Using the command line directly will let you try out different options such as --vanilla more easily. You may also need to look at your PATH environment variable (Sys.getenv("PATH")) to make sure of which version you are invoking.