R SIG Debian - Mar 2011 - "Buffer overflow" updating and installing packages...

Good evenings. I am a novice in R and I have a big problem updating and 
installing packages inside R in Ubuntu 10.10  I followed the instructions in 
http://cran.r-project.org/bin/linux/debian/ :

*Added a new repository in Ubuntu : http://cran-r.c3sl.ufpr.br/bin/linux/ubuntu 
maverick/
*update the r-base and r-base-dev packages
*Enter R with "sudo"

The R version is right [R version 2.12.2 (2011-02-25)] but commands in the R 
console like 'install.packages("pwr")' or
install.packages("agricolae") fail
with the message "*** buffer overflow detected ***: /usr/lib/R/bin/exec/R 
terminated" and a long backtrace and memory map in both cases.
I tought that the reason was because the above packages are not kept up-to-date 
like r-cran packages, but I type the 'update.packages()' command with
the
supported packages and the "buffer overflow"backtrace-memory-map
message appears
again in the 13 updates of the supported packages (like boot, nlme, lattice, 
etc).
This messages appear only in the newer versions of R in my machine, I even 
uninstalled those versions of R (2.12.x or 2.11.x) before because of this 
problems. But now, with my update of Ubuntu from 10.04 to 10.10 that's no
longer
an option and I evaded this problem long enough and is time to face it... but I 
need your help with that, because I have no idea how to solve this: my method of
uninstalling and reinstalling multiple times it didn't work.
Thanks in advance for your advice.



      
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On Sun, Mar 27, 2011 at 8:52 PM, Edin Villalobos Mora <edivimo at
yahoo.es> wrote:
> Good evenings. I am a novice in R and I have a big problem updating and
> installing packages inside R in Ubuntu 10.10 ?I followed the instructions
in
> http://cran.r-project.org/bin/linux/debian/ :
>
> *Added a new repository in Ubuntu :
http://cran-r.c3sl.ufpr.br/bin/linux/ubuntu
> maverick/
> *update the r-base and r-base-dev packages
> *Enter R with "sudo"
>
> The R version is right [R version 2.12.2 (2011-02-25)] but commands in the
R
> console like 'install.packages("pwr")' or
install.packages("agricolae") fail
> with the message "*** buffer overflow detected ***:
/usr/lib/R/bin/exec/R
> terminated" and a long backtrace and memory map in both cases.
> I tought that the reason was because the above packages are not kept
up-to-date
> like r-cran packages, but I type the 'update.packages()' command
with the
> supported packages and the "buffer overflow"backtrace-memory-map
message appears
> again in the 13 updates of the supported packages (like boot, nlme,
lattice,
> etc).
Edin,

One thing to do is to make sure all your packages have installed
correctly.  Run this command:

sudo apt-get -f install

This may correct the problem.  Also, are you running 32 or 64 bit
Ubuntu?  I have not encountered any a buffer overflow issue on any of
my machines, so this may prove difficult to diagnose.  Does the buffer
overflow (when running update.packages()) occur before or after the
window pops up to ask what mirror you want to use?

Michael

-- 
Dr. Michael A. Rutter
School of Science
Penn State Erie, The Behrend College
Station Road
Erie, PA 16563
http://math.bd.psu.edu/faculty/rutter