Install fails on Ubuntu 14.04 with latest open source Shiny

[mikeC]

We recently moved our ShinyPro installation to a new server. On the old server I want to run open-source as a test bed and backup for failure. I did apt-get remove shiny-server and then followed the instructions for downloading the open source version. I copied the default shiny-server.conf file to /etc/shiny-server/shiny-server.conf.The server is running Ubuntu 14.04.5 I upgraded R to 3.4.2 and upgraded the shiny package. Then I downloaded the latest open source version the result is simply that the server fails to start.

meconk@nuex-shinypro:~$ sudo gdebi shiny-server-1.5.5.872-amd64.deb
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
Building data structures... Done
Building data structures... Done

Shiny Server
Shiny Server is a server program from RStudio, Inc. that makes Shiny applications available over the web. Shiny is a web application framework for the R statistical computation language.
Do you want to install the software package? [y/N]:y
Selecting previously unselected package shiny-server.
(Reading database ... 106810 files and directories currently installed.)
Preparing to unpack shiny-server-1.5.5.872-amd64.deb ...
Unpacking shiny-server (1.5.5.872) ...
Setting up shiny-server (1.5.5.872) ...
User shiny already exists. Ensuring proper permissions on /home/shiny/.
Adding LANG to /etc/init/shiny-server.conf, setting to en_US.UTF-8
initctl: Job failed to start

How do I find the problem?

[mikeC]

The obvious answer is look in /var/log/shiny-server.log (which I neglected to do before posting) There I see several leftover PRO ONLY directives. Once these are eliminated from the shiny-server.conf file it starts as directed.

[nyoungblut]

I'm running into the same problem, but I don't see any "leftover PRO ONLY directives" in my /var/log/shiny-server.log. I've also never used the pro version of shiny-server. My error log:

$ gdebi shiny-server-1.5.9.923-amd64.deb
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
Reading state information... Done

Shiny Server
 Shiny Server is a server program from RStudio, Inc. that makes Shiny applications available over the web. Shiny is a web application framework for the R statistical computation language.
Do you want to install the software package? [y/N]:y
(Reading database ... 37717 files and directories currently installed.)
Preparing to unpack shiny-server-1.5.9.923-amd64.deb ...
Unpacking shiny-server (1.5.9.923) over (1.5.9.923) ...
Setting up shiny-server (1.5.9.923) ...
User shiny already exists. Ensuring proper permissions on /home/shiny/.
Adding LANG to /etc/init/shiny-server.conf, setting to en_US.UTF-8
initctl: Job failed to start

In case it helps, here's my shiny-server.conf file:

# shiny-server.conf
env LANG='en_US.UTF-8'

description "Shiny application server"

start on runlevel [2345]
stop on runlevel [016]

limit nofile 1000000 1000000

post-stop exec sleep 3

post-start script
    i=0
    while [ $i -lt 5 ]
    do
        pgrep "shiny-server" || exit 1
        sleep 1
        i=$((i+1))
    done
end script

exec shiny-server --pidfile=/var/run/shiny-server.pid >> /var/log/shiny-server.log 2>&1

respawn limit 3 30

respawn