Memory allocation problem while re-installing `ddalpha` package after upgrade to R 3.5.0

General
1

(Continuing the discussion from Issues with packages after updating to R 3.5.0 as I thought that it might be easier to start a new, more specific thread):

I had to reinstall a lot of packages following the upgrade to R 3.5.0 released yesterday and I am running into an unsual issue with the ddalpha package:

Error in system2(file.path(R.home("bin"), "R"), c(if (nzchar(arch)) paste0("--arch=",  : 
  cannot popen ' '/usr/lib64/R/bin/R' --no-save --slave 2>&1 < '/tmp/RtmpU4dXOt/file3fb5b89c507'', probable reason 'Cannot allocate memory'

I have lots of RAM and am a little surprised by the error message. I've never had such issue before. But maybe it has to do with R memory allocation? I have never had memory issue before and am very ignorant on this topic.

Note: I will also post in an Arch Linux forum as this may be an Arch Linux issue rather than a R one and I will update here if I find a solution there.

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I seem not to be the only one having this issue on Arch Linux (here is my cross posting). I would be curious to hear whether people on other OS or other distro are encountering the same problem.

Note: ddalpha is a dependency of the package caret.

3

2nd cross-posting: I also asked for help on Stack Overflow.

4

Being unable to find a solution for this, I emailed the package maintainer. It turned out to be a bug: ddalpha byte-compiled extremely slowly and with the need a 4GB of RAM on Windows and macOS systems and the installation would fail altogether on linux systems.

The maintainer was phenomenal in contacting the R core team, looking for a fix, and getting back to me within 24 hours. The package is now fixed on CRAN and can be installed without issues.

Out of curiosity, I asked for details about the bug and will post here once I know more what the issue was.

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