Build failure for check-release workflow

[nadir]

The check-release workflows fails with an error in the "Query dependencies" step. I posted a bug report on the r-lib actions repository.

I managed to fix the bug by adding 'repos = "http://cran.us.r-project.org"' to the install.packages command. After that I got this error:

2021-06-13T05:23:39.2828080Z e[36m── R CMD build ─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────e[39m
2021-06-13T05:23:41.2527970Z * checking for file ‘.../DESCRIPTION’ ... OK
2021-06-13T05:23:41.3644040Z * preparing ‘wordpredictor’:
2021-06-13T05:23:41.3846590Z * checking DESCRIPTION meta-information ... OK
2021-06-13T05:23:41.5327760Z * installing the package to build vignettes
2021-06-13T05:23:53.1578740Z * creating vignettes ... ERROR
2021-06-13T05:23:53.1587530Z ##[error]--- re-building ‘features.Rmd’ using rmarkdown
2021-06-13T05:23:53.1602800Z Warning in engine$weave(file, quiet = quiet, encoding = enc) :
2021-06-13T05:23:53.1603700Z   Pandoc (>= 1.12.3) not available. Falling back to R Markdown v1.
2021-06-13T05:23:53.1604940Z Quitting from lines 63-82 (features.Rmd) 
2021-06-13T05:23:53.1606610Z ##[error]Error: processing vignette 'features.Rmd' failed with diagnostics:
2021-06-13T05:23:53.1608680Z /private/var/folders/24/8k48jl6d249_n_qfxwsl6xvm0000gn/T/Rtmpi4v8Zb/Rbuild7d777edbcc3/wordpredictor/vignettes
2021-06-13T05:23:53.1610050Z --- failed re-building ‘features.Rmd’
2021-06-13T05:23:53.1610440Z 
2021-06-13T05:23:53.1611350Z --- re-building ‘overview.Rmd’ using rmarkdown
2021-06-13T05:23:53.1612220Z Warning in engine$weave(file, quiet = quiet, encoding = enc) :
2021-06-13T05:23:53.1613000Z   Pandoc (>= 1.12.3) not available. Falling back to R Markdown v1.
2021-06-13T05:23:53.1614150Z Quitting from lines 115-146 (overview.Rmd) 
2021-06-13T05:23:53.1615610Z ##[error]Error: processing vignette 'overview.Rmd' failed with diagnostics:
2021-06-13T05:23:53.1618200Z /private/var/folders/24/8k48jl6d249_n_qfxwsl6xvm0000gn/T/Rtmpi4v8Zb/Rbuild7d777edbcc3/wordpredictor/vignettes
2021-06-13T05:23:53.1619640Z --- failed re-building ‘overview.Rmd’
2021-06-13T05:23:53.1620050Z 
2021-06-13T05:23:53.1620650Z SUMMARY: processing the following files failed:
2021-06-13T05:23:53.1621660Z   ‘features.Rmd’ ‘overview.Rmd’
2021-06-13T05:23:53.1622050Z 
2021-06-13T05:23:53.1623140Z ##[error]Error: Vignette re-building failed.
2021-06-13T05:23:53.1624390Z Execution halted
2021-06-13T05:23:53.1932570Z ##[error]Error in proc$get_built_file() : Build process failed
2021-06-13T05:23:53.1935190Z Calls: <Anonymous> ... build_package -> with_envvar -> force -> <Anonymous>
2021-06-13T05:23:53.1936570Z Execution halted
2021-06-13T05:23:53.2033250Z ##[error]Process completed with exit code 1.

As the error suggests pandoc needs to be installed. I added this line to the workflow configuration file for installing pandoc:

- uses: r-lib/actions/setup-pandoc@v1

After that I got the following error. I have attached the log file that contains the error.

2021-06-13T05:43:29.5555630Z e[36m── R CMD build ─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────e[39m
2021-06-13T05:43:31.3413510Z * checking for file ‘.../DESCRIPTION’ ... OK
2021-06-13T05:43:31.4454500Z * preparing ‘wordpredictor’:
2021-06-13T05:43:31.4580860Z * checking DESCRIPTION meta-information ... OK
2021-06-13T05:43:31.6188650Z * installing the package to build vignettes
2021-06-13T05:43:42.4359510Z * creating vignettes ... ERROR
2021-06-13T05:43:42.4367600Z ##[error]--- re-building ‘features.Rmd’ using rmarkdown
2021-06-13T05:43:42.4383930Z Quitting from lines 63-82 (features.Rmd) 
2021-06-13T05:43:42.4386130Z ##[error]Error: processing vignette 'features.Rmd' failed with diagnostics:
2021-06-13T05:43:42.4388650Z /private/var/folders/24/8k48jl6d249_n_qfxwsl6xvm0000gn/T/RtmptbUqJW/Rbuild7a63f114adc/wordpredictor/vignettes
2021-06-13T05:43:42.4390480Z --- failed re-building ‘features.Rmd’
2021-06-13T05:43:42.4391180Z 
2021-06-13T05:43:42.4392420Z --- re-building ‘overview.Rmd’ using rmarkdown
2021-06-13T05:43:42.4393850Z Quitting from lines 115-146 (overview.Rmd) 
2021-06-13T05:43:42.4395660Z ##[error]Error: processing vignette 'overview.Rmd' failed with diagnostics:
2021-06-13T05:43:42.4397840Z /private/var/folders/24/8k48jl6d249_n_qfxwsl6xvm0000gn/T/RtmptbUqJW/Rbuild7a63f114adc/wordpredictor/vignettes
2021-06-13T05:43:42.4399540Z --- failed re-building ‘overview.Rmd’
2021-06-13T05:43:42.4400240Z 
2021-06-13T05:43:42.4401180Z SUMMARY: processing the following files failed:
2021-06-13T05:43:42.4402610Z   ‘features.Rmd’ ‘overview.Rmd’
2021-06-13T05:43:42.4403280Z 
2021-06-13T05:43:42.4404650Z ##[error]Error: Vignette re-building failed.
2021-06-13T05:43:42.4406270Z Execution halted
2021-06-13T05:43:42.4704830Z ##[error]Error in proc$get_built_file() : Build process failed
2021-06-13T05:43:42.4707530Z Calls: <Anonymous> ... build_package -> with_envvar -> force -> <Anonymous>
2021-06-13T05:43:42.4709690Z Execution halted
2021-06-13T05:43:42.4813680Z ##[error]Process completed with exit code 1.

I ran devtools::check on my local computer without problems. I am not sure why I am getting the above error on GitHub. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks.

[jimhester]

This issue has been cross posted to Testthat error in test-coverage workflow · Issue #320 · r-lib/actions · GitHub and resolved there, the vignettes were dependent on data files which were not committed to the repositories.

[nadir]

Well after committing the data files to the repository, I ran the check-release workflow. It gave the following error:

Here is a link to the log file

The line:

2021-06-16T13:04:58.7888500Z   Pandoc (>= 1.12.3) not available. Falling back to R Markdown v1.

suggests that pandoc needs to be installed on the server.

[nadir]

I finally managed to fix the error in check-release workflow on MacOs.

The problem was that the code in lines 223-242 in features.Rmd file was displaying a ggplot object using print command. I updated the method so it first saves the ggplot object to a file and then displays the file as a normal image.

I think the problem was that the print command requires access to a temporary folder. But on MacOs, the file could not be saved because of folder permissions.