renv::install() fails when CRAN-like repositories are in renv.lock

[ezraporter]

My institution uses a drat repository in our GitHub Enterprise to distribute packages internally. Since renv 0.17.0 renv::install() seems to fail for any package (even CRAN packages) when our drat repo is in my renv.lock.

I did some digging and it seems like the regression may have occurred at 62c73d9 where a warning was upgraded to an error in available-packages.R.

reprex

I created a drat repo at https://ezraporter.github.io/drat to show the issue:

renv.lock:

...
    "Repositories": [
      {
        "Name": "CRAN",
        "URL": "https://cran.rstudio.com"
      },
      {
        "Name": "OTHERAN",
        "URL": "https://ezraporter.github.io/drat"
      }
    ]
  ...

# Fails
renv::install("dplyr")

Show error message

Error: package 'dplyr' is not available
Traceback (most recent calls last):
15: renv::install("dplyr")
14: retrieve(packages)
13: handler(package, renv_retrieve_impl(package))
12: renv_retrieve_impl(package)
11: withCallingHandlers(renv_available_packages_latest(package), 
        error = function(err) stopf("package '%s' is not available", 
            package))
10: renv_available_packages_latest(package)
 9: map(errors$data(), warning)
 8: lapply(x, f, ...)
 7: FUN(X[[i]], ...)
 6: withRestarts({
        .Internal(.signalCondition(cond, message, call))
        .Internal(.dfltWarn(message, call))
    }, muffleWarning = function() NULL)
 5: withOneRestart(expr, restarts[[1L]])
 4: doWithOneRestart(return(expr), restart)
 3: <condition-handler>(...)
 2: stopf("package '%s' is not available", package)
 1: stop(sprintf(fmt, ...), call. = call.)

# Works but issues some warning messages due to the drat repo not serving binaries
utils::install.packages("dplyr")

#> ...
#> Warning: unable to access index for repository https://ezraporter.github.io/drat/bin/macosx/big-sur-arm64/contrib/4.2:
#>  cannot open URL 'https://ezraporter.github.io/drat/bin/macosx/big-sur-arm64/contrib/4.2/PACKAGES'
#> ...

Ideally renv would also be able to install and track sources for packages downloaded from drat repos.

In renv 0.16.0, this works:

renv::install("dummypackage")

where dummypackage is a package in https://ezraporter.github.io/drat. renv::snapshot() generates the right thing in my renv.lock:

...
"Packages": {
    "dummypackage": {
      "Package": "dummypackage",
      "Version": "0.1.0",
      "Source": "Repository",
      "Repository": "OTHERAN", # <-- repo is tracked!
      "Hash": "76b8b050c24559ba3b842a564852c5a1",
      "Requirements": []
    },
...

In the latest development version:

# Fails
renv::install("dummypackage")

# Works
utils::install.packages("dummypackage")

However, renv::snapshot() doesn't generate the right thing:

...
"Packages": {
    "dummypackage": {
      "Package": "dummypackage",
      "Version": "0.1.0",
      "Source": "unknown",
      "Hash": "76b8b050c24559ba3b842a564852c5a1"
    }
...

Session Info

Session Info

R version 4.2.1 (2022-06-23)
Platform: aarch64-apple-darwin20 (64-bit)
Running under: macOS Ventura 13.4

Matrix products: default
LAPACK: /Library/Frameworks/R.framework/Versions/4.2-arm64/Resources/lib/libRlapack.dylib

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

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

loaded via a namespace (and not attached):
[1] compiler_4.2.1  tools_4.2.1     renv_1.0.0.9000

[kevinushey]

Thanks for the bug report. A more straightforward reprex:

options(repos = c(
  CRAN = "https://cran.rstudio.com",
  OTHER = "https://ezraporter.github.io/drat"
))

renv::install("dplyr")

[kevinushey]

The problem here is that we're signaling a hard error when a repository fails to return available packages:

renv/R/available-packages.R

Lines 87 to 100 in acc968a

	# propagate errors
	errors <- as.list(errors)
	enumerate(errors, function(url, errors) {
	if (empty(errors))
	return()
	for (error in errors)
	warning(error)
	fmt <- "could not retrieve available packages for url %s"
	stopf(fmt, shQuote(url))
	})

Perhaps that shouldn't be an error?