R failing to start when inside folder on remote drive

Positron
1

Edited to add detail that it's a remote-drive specific issue.

I'm having a strange issue where R will start when I have no folder open or have a local folder open, but when I try to open a folder in a remote drive that I had previously been using (without issue), R is failing to start.

Error message:
R 4.5.2 failed to start.
Timed out waiting for terminal to start after 15000ms
Error: Timed out waiting for terminal to start after 15000ms
at Timeout._onTimeout (c:\Users\rchickm\AppData\Local\Programs\Positron\resources\app\extensions\positron-supervisor\dist\extension.js:2:263456)
at listOnTimeout (node:internal/timers:588:17)
at process.processTimers (node:internal/timers:523:7)

If I close the folder, then R starts without a problem. The folder is on a remote drive and I'm using a VPN to access it. I had R 4.5.2 working fine before this started happening, so I don't think it's an issue with R.

Information about my Positron:

Positron Version: 2026.03.0 (user setup) build 212
Code - OSS Version: 1.108.0
Commit: f3aae65e0a1a11d39226cd884520f49301daef82
Date: 2026-02-26T05:40:08.032Z
Electron: 39.2.7
Chromium: 142.0.7444.235
Node.js: 22.21.1
V8: 14.2.231.21-electron.0
OS: Windows_NT x64 10.0.26200

Thanks in advance. I made the switch over to Positron specifically since RStudio projects weren't working with the VPN/remote drive, so I hope this issue can be resolved!

1 Like
2

Thanks for reporting! Could you provide a little more info?

  • When you say a "folder in a remote drive", is it a mapped network drive with a letter? A UNC path? something else?
  • It looks like Positron is having trouble starting a terminal to run R inside. Are you able to start regular terminals in this folder? i.e. if you just go the Terminal tab, can you start a terminal there?
  • It could just be slow. You can set Kernel Supervisor: Startup Timeout in Settings; try setting to 60.
  • Can you share the Kernel Supervisor logs? (you can find them in the Output panel, then select Kernel Supervisor from the dropdown)
1 Like