`this.path()` not working in RStudio, incorrectly claims R is running in an unrecognized manner

[dfranquesa]

> this.path()
Error in .this.path.toplevel() : 
  'this.path' used in an inappropriate fashion
* no appropriate source call was found up the calling stack
* R is being run in an unrecognized manner

> utils::bug.report(package = "this.path")
Package: this.path
 Version: 1.4.0
 Maintainer: Iris Simmons <ikwsimmo@gmail.com>
 Built: R 4.3.0; x86_64-pc-linux-gnu; 2023-05-11 05:16:54 UTC; unix

R Version:
 platform = x86_64-pc-linux-gnu
 arch = x86_64
 os = linux-gnu
 system = x86_64, linux-gnu
 status = 
 major = 4
 minor = 3.0
 year = 2023
 month = 04
 day = 21
 svn rev = 84292
 language = R
 version.string = R version 4.3.0 (2023-04-21)
 nickname = Already Tomorrow

Locale:
 LC_CTYPE=en_US.UTF-8;LC_NUMERIC=C;LC_TIME=es_ES.UTF-8;LC_COLLATE=en_US.UTF-8;LC_MONETARY=es_ES.UTF-8;LC_MESSAGES=en_US.UTF-8;LC_PAPER=es_ES.UTF-8;LC_NAME=C;LC_ADDRESS=C;LC_TELEPHONE=C;LC_MEASUREMENT=es_ES.UTF-8;LC_IDENTIFICATION=C

Search Path:
 .GlobalEnv, package:this.path, tools:rstudio, package:stats, package:graphics, package:grDevices, package:utils, package:datasets, package:methods, Autoloads, package:base

[ArcadeAntics]

Hiya @dfranquesa! Can you give me more details about how you are running R?

I'll assume you're running from RStudio given that tools:rstudio is in your search path.

Someone else had a similar problem (issue #7) and it seemed to be easily resolved by re-installing the package. I would suggest that first. If that does not solve the issue, it might be helpful to know which version of RStudio you're running, either with:

rstudio --version

or:

.rs.api.versionInfo()

To confirm whether we are running from RStudio, package:this.path checks a variable gui.rstudio defined as such:

gui.rstudio <- commandArgs()[[1L]] == "RStudio" &&
isTRUE(Sys.getpid() == Sys.getenv("RSTUDIO_SESSION_PID")) &&
if (.Platform$GUI == "RStudio") TRUE else (
    (.Platform$OS.type == "unix"    && .Platform$GUI %in% c("X11"  , "unknown", "none")) ||
    (.Platform$OS.type == "windows" && .Platform$GUI %in% c("RTerm", "unknown"        ))
)

This may look unnecessarily complex, but it is needed for code run in the site-wide startup profile file, a user profile, and the function .First() (see ?Startup if you would like more information). As such, I need to know the output of the following:

commandArgs()
Sys.getpid()
Sys.getenv("RSTUDIO_SESSION_PID")  ## if this is blank, please run Sys.getenv() instead
.Platform

If you'd like to arrange a video call to resolve this matter faster and possibly easier, you can email me at ikwsimmo@gmail.com. Thank you!

[Tomeriko96]

Hi @ArcadeAntics

I wanted to inform you that I also faced this issue while using this.path version 1.4.0 with R 4.3.1.
However, after downgrading to version 1.2.0 (as per #7) of this.path, the function worked again.

Best regards,

[ArcadeAntics]

Hiya @Tomeriko96

Would you mind running this so that I can better diagnose the issue?

commandArgs()
Sys.getpid()
Sys.getenv("RSTUDIO_SESSION_PID")  ## if this is blank, please run Sys.getenv() instead
.Platform

Thank you!

[Tomeriko96]

Sure thing!

> commandArgs()
[1] "RStudio"       "--interactive"
> Sys.getpid()
[1] 19572
> Sys.getenv("RSTUDIO_SESSION_PID")  ## if this is blank, please run Sys.getenv() instead
[1] "19572"
> .Platform
$OS.type
[1] "windows"

$file.sep
[1] "/"

$dynlib.ext
[1] ".dll"

$GUI
[1] "RStudio"

$endian
[1] "little"

$pkgType
[1] "win.binary"

$path.sep
[1] ";"

$r_arch
[1] "x64"

[ArcadeAntics]

@Tomeriko96 the problem may have arised from using this.path in an Rprofile.site or .Rprofile file, both of which get evaluated before .Platform$GUI is set to "RStudio". In that case, the GUI is "Rgui" but I accidentally checked for "RTerm", that should be fixed in the upcoming update.

Would you mind copying that same code into your .Rprofile and showing the output?

Also, if you install the latest version from Github, does this.path() work in RStudio?

Thank you again!

[Tomeriko96]

Here is the output from .Rprofile. As you mentioned the GUI is indeed Rgui then.

[1] "RStudio"       "--interactive"
[1] 23024
[1] "23024"
$OS.type
[1] "windows"

$file.sep
[1] "/"

$dynlib.ext
[1] ".dll"

$GUI
[1] "Rgui"

$endian
[1] "little"

$pkgType
[1] "win.binary"

$path.sep
[1] ";"

$r_arch
[1] "x64"

Furthermore, I placed this in the .Rprofile after activating the project renv:

source("renv/activate.R")
commandArgs()
Sys.getpid()
Sys.getenv("RSTUDIO_SESSION_PID")  ## if this is blank, please run Sys.getenv() instead
.Platform

Lastly, it seems the development version does not throw this error.

[ArcadeAntics]

Nice, at least the update will fix the issue on Windows. Unfortunately @dfranquesa was experiencing this issue on some Linux distribution so the issue isn't fully resolved. At least it's a start. Thank you @Tomeriko96 for your responses! I'm glad it's working!

[crivier]

Hi @ArcadeAntics - was there ever a fix to this issue in Linux? I'm running into it myself.

In my .RProfile I put this line:
print(.Platform$GUI)

It prints "X11", not what I think is expected "RStudio".

> this.path()
Error in .gui_path() : R is running in an unrecognized manner
> print(.Platform$GUI)
[1] "RStudio"
> utils::bug.report(package = "this.path")
Package: this.path
 Version: 2.5.0
 Maintainer: Iris Simmons <ikwsimmo@gmail.com>
 Built: R 4.3.0; x86_64-pc-linux-gnu; 2024-07-25 19:08:33 UTC; unix

R Version:
 platform = x86_64-pc-linux-gnu
 arch = x86_64
 os = linux-gnu
 system = x86_64, linux-gnu
 status = 
 major = 4
 minor = 3.0
 year = 2023
 month = 04
 day = 21
 svn rev = 84292
 language = R
 version.string = R version 4.3.0 (2023-04-21)
 nickname = Already Tomorrow

Locale:
 LC_CTYPE=en_US.UTF-8;LC_NUMERIC=C;LC_TIME=en_US.UTF-8;LC_COLLATE=en_US.UTF-8;LC_MONETARY=en_US.UTF-8;LC_MESSAGES=en_US.UTF-8;LC_PAPER=en_US.UTF-8;LC_NAME=C;LC_ADDRESS=C;LC_TELEPHONE=C;LC_MEASUREMENT=en_US.UTF-8;LC_IDENTIFICATION=C

Search Path:
 .GlobalEnv, package:this.path, tools:rstudio, package:stats, package:graphics, package:grDevices, package:utils, package:datasets, package:methods,
 Autoloads, package:base

[ArcadeAntics]

Hiya @crivier

As far as I knew, this was fixed. At least, it works on my Linux computer.

Could try running the following code (in both your .Rprofile and in the console after normal startup):

print(commandArgs())
print(Sys.getpid())
print(Sys.getenv("RSTUDIO_SESSION_PID"))
print(Sys.getenv())

I would expect that commandArgs()[[1L]] is "RStudio" and Sys.getpid() is the same as Sys.getenv("RSTUDIO_SESSION_PID").

If not, then hopefully I can change it.

The previous code that relied on the value of .Platform$GUI no longer exists.

[crivier]

Thanks for getting on this so soon!!! (This library was a huge save for us - cron jobs' location vs code location, etc.)
The weird thing here might be that this is an AWS RStudio linux server?
For some reason the RSTUDIO_SESSION_PID doesn't exist, and that's I'm assuming why this doesn't work.
Took out any getenv() that had my name, otherwise:

> print(commandArgs())
[1] "RStudio"       "--interactive"
> print(Sys.getpid())
[1] 23677
> print(Sys.getenv("RSTUDIO_SESSION_PID"))
[1] ""
> print(Sys.getenv())
CLICOLOR_FORCE                                      1
DISPLAY                                             :0
EDITOR                                              vi
GIT_ASKPASS                                         rpostback-askpass
LANG                                                en_US.UTF-8
LD_LIBRARY_PATH                                     /usr/local/lib64/R/lib::/lib:/usr/local/lib64:/usr/lib/jvm/java-1.8.0-openjdk-1.8.0.372.b07-1.amzn2.0.1.x86_64/jre/lib/amd64/server
LN_S                                                ln -s
MAKE                                                make
MPLENGINE                                           tkAgg
ODBCSYSINI                                          /etc
PAGER                                               /usr/bin/less
PATH                                                /usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/usr/lib/rstudio-server/bin/postback:/usr/lib/rstudio-server/bin/postback:/usr/lib/rstudio-server/bin/postback:/usr/lib/rstudio-server/bin/postback:/usr/lib/rstudio-server/bin/postback:/usr/lib/rstudio-server/bin/postback
R_BROWSER                                           /usr/bin/open
R_BZIPCMD                                           /usr/bin/bzip2
R_DOC_DIR                                           /usr/local/lib64/R/doc
R_GZIPCMD                                           /usr/bin/gzip
R_HOME                                              /usr/local/lib64/R
R_INCLUDE_DIR                                       /usr/local/lib64/R/include
R_LIBS_SITE                                         /usr/local/lib64/R/site-library
R_PAPERSIZE                                         a4
R_PDFVIEWER                                         /usr/bin/open
R_PLATFORM                                          x86_64-pc-linux-gnu
R_PRINTCMD                                          
R_RD4PDF                                            times,inconsolata,hyper
R_SESSION_TMPDIR                                    /tmp/RtmpmglHnn
R_SHARE_DIR                                         /usr/local/lib64/R/share
R_STRIP_SHARED_LIB                                  strip --strip-unneeded
R_STRIP_STATIC_LIB                                  strip --strip-debug
R_SYSTEM_ABI                                        linux,gcc,gxx,gfortran,gfortran
R_TEXI2DVICMD                                       texi2dvi
R_UNZIPCMD                                          /usr/bin/unzip
R_ZIPCMD                                            /usr/bin/zip
RMARKDOWN_MATHJAX_PATH                              /usr/lib/rstudio-server/resources/mathjax-27
RS_RPOSTBACK_PATH                                   /usr/lib/rstudio-server/bin/rpostback
RS_SESSION_TMP_DIR                                  /var/run/rstudio-server/rstudio-rsession
RSTUDIO                                             1
RSTUDIO_CONSOLE_COLOR                               256
RSTUDIO_CONSOLE_WIDTH                               175
RSTUDIO_PANDOC                                      /usr/lib/rstudio-server/bin/pandoc
RSTUDIO_PROGRAM_MODE                                server
RSTUDIO_R_MODULE                                    
RSTUDIO_R_PRELAUNCH_SCRIPT                          
RSTUDIO_R_REPO                                      
RSTUDIO_R_VERSION_LABEL                             
RSTUDIO_WINUTILS                                    bin/winutils
SED                                                 /usr/bin/sed
SSH_ASKPASS                                         rpostback-askpass
TAR                                                 /usr/bin/gtar
TERM                                                xterm-256color
TZ                                                  CSTCDT
TZDIR                                               /usr/share/zoneinfo