RStudio Desktop build I install (2025.09.2 “Cucumberleaf Sunflower”) Failing to load

On Windows 10 with McAfee Total Protection,

On Windows 10 with McAfee Total Protection, I have R 4.5.2 installed and working correctly from PowerShell, and I’ve set RSTUDIO_WHICH_R so RStudio should use C:\Program Files\R\R-4.5.2\bin\R.exe. However, every recent RStudio Desktop build I install (2025.09.2 “Cucumberleaf Sunflower” and after a full uninstall + config wipe) fails to start the R session: I only get the “Error Starting R” screen, no Console, and no rsession-*.log is created. The only log is rdesktop.log, which shows the Electron front‑end failing to load its own local HTML (splash/index.html, error_window/index.html) with ERR_FAILED/ERR_ABORTED and then IpcError: getStartupErrorInfo: Cannot set properties of null (setting 'innerHTML') followed by “Object has been destroyed.” Disabling McAfee’s real‑time scanning and firewall does not change the behavior, and the HTML assets are present on disk under C:\Program Files\RStudio\resources\app\.webpack\renderer\. I’m looking for guidance on what might prevent RStudio’s UI from loading its own renderer pages and how to get RStudio Desktop working again with my existing R 4.5.2 installation

First, you mention "full uninstall + config wipe". If the configuration wipe did not include erasing RStudio's state (see here), you might try that.

Second, you might try starting RStudio from a command prompt. It might possibly cough up some error messages there. You can also try running it with the --run-diagnostics option, which would (hopefully) write some diagnostics to a file.