How should I deal with “package 'xxx' is n

Question

I tried to install a package, using

install.packages("foobarbaz")

but received the warning

Warning message:
package 'foobarbaz' is not available (for R version x.y.z)

Why doesn't R think that the package is available?

See also these questions referring to specific instances of this problem:

My package doesn't work for R 2.15.2
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https://stackoverflow.com/questions/21580661/installing-predictabel-package-on-r-2-15-2
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https://stackoverflow.com/questions/31439092/package-dplyr-is-not-available-for-r-version-3-1-1

Answer 1

I fixed this error on Ubuntu by carefully following the instructions for installing R. This included:

1. adding deb http://cran.utstat.utoronto.ca/bin/linux/ubuntu trusty/ to my /etc/apt/sources.list file
2. Running sudo apt-get update
3. Running sudo apt-get install r-base-dev

For step 1 you can chose any CRAN download mirror in place of my University of Toronto one if you would like.

Answer 2

I made the mistake of forgetting to put repos=NULL when installing the R package from source code. In this case the error message is slightly misleading: package 'foobarbaz' is not available (for R version x.y.z)

The problem was not the version of R, it was the repos parameter. I did install.packages('path/to/source/code/of/foobarbaz', type='source', repos=NULL) which worked for me in this occasion.

Hope this helps someone.

Answer 3

11. R (or another dependency) is out of date and you don't want to update it.

Warning this is not exactly best practice.

• Download the package source.
• Navigate to the DESCRIPTION file.

• Remove the offending line with your text editor e.g.

  Depends: R (>= 3.1.1)
  

• Install from local (i.e. from the parent directory of DESCRIPTION) e.g.

  install.packages("foo", type="source", repos=NULL)
  

Answer 4

devtools + GitHub. These 3 lines (helped me on this error) were not yet mentioned:

install.packages("devtools")  # if not already installed
library(devtools)
install_git("https://github.com/profile/foobarbaz_repository")

Answer 5

I encountered the same problem on installing package "sentiment". Started Searching and tried many commands. Finally the package installed using following command:

install_url("http://cran.r-project.org/src/contrib/Archive/sentiment/sentiment_0.2.tar.gz")

Answer 6

In the latest R (3.2.3) there is a bug, preventing it some times from finding correct package. The workaround is to set repository manually:

install.packages("lubridate", dependencies=TRUE, repos='http://cran.rstudio.com/')

Found solution in other question