Pak in Github CI always tries to install from source

[humberto-garciacaballero]

Hi all,

I have recently faced a problem when using the action r-lib/actions/setup-r-dependencies@v2. I believe the problem is cause by pak trying to install all the dependencies of my package from source. This results in random x Failed to download XXXX messages. These message affect different libraries in different runs and not always happen.

I have tried many different configurations of my workflow: different runners, removing renv activation (I have it in my project just for local development), setting up upgrade: (FALSE) manually. I have removed all the dependencies of my project too to see if this made any difference. The result is that sometimes all the dependencies are downloaded correctly, and others not like in the previous screenshot, but always from source and not from the binaries. The following screenshot is the info that appears in the Install/Update packages step with empty Imports/Suggests:

I have reviewed the lockfile.json that is generated in the workflow and I can see that all the dependencies have a property binary: false so I am assuming this is why pak tries to download sources instead of binaries. However, I cannot think of a reason why ALL of them are marked as binary: false.

Something to note is that I am running this workflow in a private repository within my organization, I don't know if this makes any difference at all. I have another project that is running the exact same workflow in a public repository and things work just fine there.

Any ideas or suggestions that I could try?

Thank you very much in advance!

[gaborcsardi]

Something to note is that I am running this workflow in a private repository within my organization, I don't know if this makes any difference at all. I have another project that is running the exact same workflow in a public repository and things work just fine there.

Unfortunately it is quite hard to help if we can't see your configuration. Maybe you can try to reproduce this in a public repository?

[humberto-garciacaballero]

Hi @gaborcsardi, thanks for your prompt reply. I had the chance to dig a bit deeper into this issue and found the reason why it was happening. Pak was trying to download and build from source because renv was setting the repos option to a repo that did not contain binaries for amd64 linux (ubuntu 22.04) machine. The result was that the installation (independently of pak) was getting the only resources that were available in the repo. Setting the cran repository to another one containing binaries for linux solved my issue.

I will close the issue now and leave it here in case anyone finds a situation like this in the future. Thanks again!