Deployment to shinyapps.io systematically fails due to Rcpp compilation error

shiny
,
1

On trying to deploy a Shiny app to shinyapps.io, I systematically get an error caused by Rcpp failing to compile. I'm using R 4.4.3 on Windows 11 with the latest version of RStudio. The app runs fine locally and only has direct dependencies on shiny, shinyBS, shinyjs, and DT.

I've tried:

  1. Creating a minimal version with just core Shiny functionality
  2. Removing all visualization elements
  3. Using only base R graphics (no ggplot2)
  4. Deploying with only app.R and data files

I suspect this is related to the known Rcpp 1.0.13 compatibility issues with R 4.4.x described in this GitHub issue: Rcpp 1.0.13 build error with R 4.4.2 (VECTOR_PTR_RO) · Issue #1341 · RcppCore/Rcpp · GitHub

Is there a way to:

  • Force shinyapps.io to use a specific version of Rcpp (1.0.10 or earlier)?
  • Deploy with an older R version (4.2.x or 4.3.x)?
  • Specify binary packages instead of building from source?

Here is the error log from the console:
[2025-04-10T03:53:33.004623228+0000] Building R package: Rcpp (1.0.13)
/mnt/packages/build /mnt
g++ -std=gnu++17 -I"/opt/R/4.4.3/lib/R/include" -DNDEBUG -I../inst/include/ -I/usr/local/include -fpic -g -O2 -c api.cpp -o api.o
g++ -std=gnu++17 -I"/opt/R/4.4.3/lib/R/include" -DNDEBUG -I../inst/include/ -I/usr/local/include -fpic -g -O2 -c attributes.cpp -o attributes.o
g++ -std=gnu++17 -I"/opt/R/4.4.3/lib/R/include" -DNDEBUG -I../inst/include/ -I/usr/local/include -fpic -g -O2 -c barrier.cpp -o barrier.o

  • installing to library ‘/usr/lib/R’
  • installing source package ‘Rcpp’ ...
    ** package ‘Rcpp’ successfully unpacked and MD5 sums checked
    ** using staged installation
    ** libs
    using C++ compiler: ‘g++ (Ubuntu 11.4.0-1ubuntu1~22.04) 11.4.0’
    In file included from barrier.cpp:31:
    barrier.cpp: In function ‘SEXPREC** get_vector_ptr(SEXP)’:
    ../inst/include/Rcpp/r/compat.h:34:26: error: ‘VECTOR_PTR_RO’ was not declared in this scope; did you mean ‘VECTOR_PTR’?
    34 | # define RCPP_VECTOR_PTR VECTOR_PTR_RO
    | ^~~~~~~~~~~~~
    barrier.cpp:74:30: note: in expansion of macro ‘RCPP_VECTOR_PTR’
    74 | return const_cast<SEXP*>(RCPP_VECTOR_PTR(x)); // #nocov end
    | ^~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
    make: *** [/opt/R/4.4.3/lib/R/etc/Makeconf:204: barrier.o] Error 1
    ERROR: compilation failed for package ‘Rcpp’
  • removing ‘/usr/lib/R/Rcpp’## End Task Log ###################################################################################
    Error: Unhandled Exception: child_task=1530509887 child_task_status=failed: Error building image: Error building Rcpp (1.0.13). Build exited with non-zero status: 1
1 Like
2

I solved the problem by installing R 4.4.1. The deployment works in that case without further adapting the code.