R help - Mar 2004 - problem with install.packages and update.packages

Dear all,

I am working with MS Windows XP Pro (latest update) and a pre-compiled 
version of R:

 > version
          _
platform i386-pc-mingw32
arch     i386
os       mingw32
system   i386, mingw32
status
major    1
minor    8.1
year     2003
month    11
day      21
language R

I meet a strange problem with install.packages and update.packages 
(called from the menu), that did not occur until today:

######

 > local({a <- CRAN.packages()
+ install.packages(select.list(a[,1],,TRUE), .libPaths()[1], available=a)})
trying URL `http://cran.r-project.org/bin/windows/contrib/1.8/PACKAGES'
Error in download.file(url = paste(contriburl, "PACKAGES", sep =
"/"),  :
         cannot open URL 
`http://cran.r-project.org/bin/windows/contrib/1.8/PACKAGES'
In addition: Warning message:
InternetOpenUrl failed: `'


 > update.packages()
trying URL `http://cran.r-project.org/bin/windows/contrib/1.8/PACKAGES'
Error in download.file(url = paste(contriburl, "PACKAGES", sep =
"/"),  :
         cannot open URL 
`http://cran.r-project.org/bin/windows/contrib/1.8/PACKAGES'
In addition: Warning message:
InternetOpenUrl failed: `'

######

I still can access http://www.r-project.org/ and any of its section 
(including download) with my browser:

Mozilla 1.6
Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; fr-FR; rv:1.6) Gecko/20040113

The only thing I recently changed on my computer was to update Mozilla 
(from 1.5 to 1.6).

Any hint will be highly appreciated.

Best regards,

Renaud
-- 
Dr Renaud Lancelot, v?t?rinaire
C/0 Ambassade de France - SCAC
BP 834 Antananarivo 101 - Madagascar

e-mail: renaud.lancelot at cirad.fr
tel.:   +261 32 04 824 55 (cell)
         +261 20 22 665 36 ext. 225 (work)
         +261 20 22 494 37 (home)

Well, perhaps the site (which is not www.r-project.org) was unavailable or
inaccessible when you tried.  Internet caches can make sites appear
available when they are not, and the download processes do try to avoid
cached copies.

You seem to have --internet2 as your command-line flag (from the error 
message), so you do need to check you can access the exact URL *from 
Internet Explorer*.  (BTW, that is a crucial piece of information that you 
did not supply.)  If you use Mozilla, why do you have --internet2?

Note too that if R has not been changed, this is not a problem with R but 
with your own computer, and we are not going to be able to debug something 
you changed on your own machine, are we?


On Sat, 6 Mar 2004, Renaud Lancelot wrote:
> Dear all,
> 
> I am working with MS Windows XP Pro (latest update) and a pre-compiled 
> version of R:
> 
>  > version
>           _
> platform i386-pc-mingw32
> arch     i386
> os       mingw32
> system   i386, mingw32
> status
> major    1
> minor    8.1
> year     2003
> month    11
> day      21
> language R
> 
> I meet a strange problem with install.packages and update.packages 
> (called from the menu), that did not occur until today:
> 
> ######
> 
>  > local({a <- CRAN.packages()
> + install.packages(select.list(a[,1],,TRUE), .libPaths()[1], available=a)})
> trying URL `http://cran.r-project.org/bin/windows/contrib/1.8/PACKAGES'
> Error in download.file(url = paste(contriburl, "PACKAGES", sep =
"/"),  :
>          cannot open URL 
> `http://cran.r-project.org/bin/windows/contrib/1.8/PACKAGES'
> In addition: Warning message:
> InternetOpenUrl failed: `'
> 
> 
>  > update.packages()
> trying URL `http://cran.r-project.org/bin/windows/contrib/1.8/PACKAGES'
> Error in download.file(url = paste(contriburl, "PACKAGES", sep =
"/"),  :
>          cannot open URL 
> `http://cran.r-project.org/bin/windows/contrib/1.8/PACKAGES'
> In addition: Warning message:
> InternetOpenUrl failed: `'
> 
> ######
> 
> I still can access http://www.r-project.org/ and any of its section 
> (including download) with my browser:
> 
> Mozilla 1.6
> Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; fr-FR; rv:1.6) Gecko/20040113
> 
> The only thing I recently changed on my computer was to update Mozilla 
> (from 1.5 to 1.6).
> 
> Any hint will be highly appreciated.
> 
> Best regards,
> 
> Renaud
> 
-- 
Brian D. Ripley,                  ripley at stats.ox.ac.uk
Professor of Applied Statistics,  http://www.stats.ox.ac.uk/~ripley/
University of Oxford,             Tel:  +44 1865 272861 (self)
1 South Parks Road,                     +44 1865 272866 (PA)
Oxford OX1 3TG, UK                Fax:  +44 1865 272595