ggplot2 Package Installation Failure on shinyapps.io - Unable to Deploy Any Shiny Apps Using ggplot2

Posit Professional & Hosted Products shinyapps.io
1

Hello,

I've been attempting to deploy a Shiny app that uses ggplot2 to shinyapps.io, but I'm consistently encountering failures. This issue isn't limited to just the ggplot2 package; it's affecting the deployment of all Shiny apps that use ggplot2.

Here's the error log:

[2024-07-02T00:50:24.106888448+0000] Building R package: ggplot2 (3.4.2)
/mnt/packages/build /mnt
Error in .make_numeric_version(x, strict, .standard_regexps()$valid_numeric_version) : 
  invalid non-character version specification 'x' (type: double)
Error: unable to load R code in package 'ggplot2'
Execution halted
* installing to library '/usr/lib/R'
* installing *source* package 'ggplot2' ...
** package 'ggplot2' successfully unpacked and MD5 sums checked
** using staged installation
** R
** data
*** moving datasets to lazyload DB
** inst
** byte-compile and prepare package for lazy loading
ERROR: lazy loading failed for package 'ggplot2'
* removing '/usr/lib/R/ggplot2'
Error: Unhandled Exception: child_task=1432680297 child_task_status=failed: Error building image: Error building ggplot2 (3.4.2). Build exited with non-zero status: 1
Execution halted

This error occurs during the installation process of the ggplot2 package on the shinyapps.io server. It appears that the problem arises when processing version information.

As a result of this issue, it's impossible to deploy any Shiny apps that use ggplot2. Given that ggplot2 is a widely used core package for data visualization, this problem is likely to affect many Shiny developers.

I would appreciate help with the following questions:

  1. Can we identify the root cause of this issue?
  2. Is the shinyapps.io team aware of this problem?
  3. Are there any workarounds or solutions that developers can implement?
  4. Are there alternative visualization libraries that could be used instead of ggplot2?

I hope this issue can be resolved quickly so that we can resume deploying Shiny apps that use ggplot2. Thank you for your attention to this matter.

2

The message says it is building ggplot2 version 3.4.2, which is somewhat out of date. The current version is 3.5.1. If you have 3.4.2 installed on the machine from which you are trying to deploy the app, can you upgrade to 3.5.1 and see if that fixes the problem?

3

Hello,

I’m running into a problem while trying to deploy my Shiny app on shinyapps.io. It uses the ggplot2 package for data visualization, but every time I try to deploy, it fails. This issue is affecting all Shiny apps that rely on ggplot2, not just mine.

Here’s what the error log looks like:
Error in .make_numeric_version(x, strict, .standard_regexps()$valid_numeric_version) :
invalid non-character version specification 'x' (type: double)
Error: unable to load R code in package 'ggplot2'
...
ERROR: lazy loading failed for package 'ggplot2'
From the log, it seems like there's a problem with processing the version information of ggplot2 during installation on shinyapps.io.

I have a few questions and would appreciate any help:

  1. What’s causing this issue? – Understanding the root cause would help us address it better.
  2. Is shinyapps.io aware of this problem? – Knowing if this is a known issue can guide us in finding a solution.
  3. Are there any workarounds or fixes? – If there are temporary solutions or steps we can take, it would be helpful.
  4. What alternatives are available? – If ggplot2 is not an option right now, are there other visualization libraries we can use?

I hope this can be resolved soon so that we can get back to deploying our Shiny apps smoothly.

Thank you for your assistance!

If you need further help or have any other questions, feel free to reach out to Impressico Business Solutions. They can offer additional support and solutions for your Shiny app deployment challenges.