Travis build error: cannot open URL '/src/contrib/PACKAGES'

[karawoo]

I previously asked this in rOpenSci's slack, but unfortunately haven't figured out a solution yet. I am seeing the following error on Travis when trying to test a package of mine. I've created a simple test project to try to isolate the problem, and it seems to be related to a dependency issue (build link):

Error: (converted from warning) unable to access index for repository /src/contrib:
  cannot open URL '/src/contrib/PACKAGES'

My package depends on another package that is available through a repository my employer set up. I'm listing this repository in the DESCRIPTION under Additional_repositories, which I believe is the correct way to list alternate repositories (and previously worked fine with Travis).

Additional_repositories:
    https://sage-bionetworks.github.io/ran

Locally, I can install this dependency with install.packages("synapser", repos = "https://sage-bionetworks.github.io/ran").

Does anyone know why I'm seeing this Travis failure?

[Gabor]

Seems like a bug in the remotes package:

❯ remotes::install_github("karawoo/travistest")
Downloading GitHub repo karawoo/travistest@master
Installing 4 packages: pack, PythonEmbedInR, rjson, synapser
Installing packages into ‘/Users/gaborcsardi/R’
(as ‘lib’ is unspecified)
Error: (converted from warning) unable to access index for repository /src/contrib:
  cannot open URL '/src/contrib/PACKAGES'

This is a fix:

❯ Sys.setenv(R_REMOTES_NO_ERRORS_FROM_WARNINGS = "true")

❯ remotes::install_github("karawoo/travistest")
Downloading GitHub repo karawoo/travistest@master
Installing 4 packages: pack, PythonEmbedInR, rjson, synapser
Installing packages into ‘/Users/gaborcsardi/R’
(as ‘lib’ is unspecified)
Warning: unable to access index for repository /src/contrib:
  cannot open URL '/src/contrib/PACKAGES'
Warning: unable to access index for repository /src/contrib:
  cannot open URL '/src/contrib/PACKAGES'
Warning: unable to access index for repository /bin/macosx/el-capitan/contrib/3.5:
  cannot open URL '/bin/macosx/el-capitan/contrib/3.5/PACKAGES'
Warning: unable to access index for repository /bin/macosx/el-capitan/contrib/3.5:
  cannot open URL '/bin/macosx/el-capitan/contrib/3.5/PACKAGES'
trying URL 'https://cloud.r-project.org/bin/macosx/el-capitan/contrib/3.5/pack_0.1-1.tgz'
Content type 'application/x-gzip' length 26472 bytes (25 KB)
==================================================
downloaded 25 KB

trying URL 'https://sage-bionetworks.github.io/ran/bin/macosx/el-capitan/contrib/3.5/PythonEmbedInR_0.3.25.tgz'
Content type 'application/octet-stream' length 43693711 bytes (41.7 MB)
==================================================
downloaded 41.7 MB

trying URL 'https://sage-bionetworks.github.io/ran/bin/macosx/el-capitan/contrib/3.5/synapser_0.4.41.tgz'
Content type 'application/octet-stream' length 47190822 bytes (45.0 MB)
==================================================
downloaded 45.0 MB


The downloaded binary packages are in
	/var/folders/59/0gkmw1yj2w7bf2dfc3jznv5w0000gn/T//Rtmpn18TNP/downloaded_packages

...

You can set the same env var on Travis.