renv::install fails to install from GitHub when using curl 8.7.1

[jabenninghoff]

renv::install fails to install from GitHub when using curl 8.7.1 on macOS.

To reproduce, create a new project in RStudio on macOS in a new directory, selecting "Use renv with this project" and install the latest version of curl using brew install curl.

Running:

Sys.setenv(PATH = paste0("/opt/homebrew/opt/curl/bin:", Sys.getenv("PATH")))
renv::install("eddelbuettel/digest")

Will fail with an error:

Error: failed to resolve remote 'eddelbuettel/digest' -- error downloading 'https://api.github.com/repos/eddelbuettel/digest/contents/DESCRIPTION?ref=ebd25a4bd18f3c5ee786a463cb01d629162cc8f1' [error code 26]

A trace shows the call is failing on renv_remotes_resolve_github_description. Setting options(renv.download.trace = TRUE) fails to provide any additional information.

> traceback()
15: stop(simpleError(message = message, call = e$call))
14: h(simpleError(msg, call))
13: .handleSimpleError(function (e) 
    {
        fmt <- "failed to resolve remote '%s'"
        prefix <- sprintf(fmt, spec)
        message <- paste(prefix, e$message, sep = " -- ")
        stop(simpleError(message = message, call = e$call))
    }, "error downloading 'https://api.github.com/repos/eddelbuettel/digest/contents/DESCRIPTION?ref=ebd25a4bd18f3c5ee786a463cb01d629162cc8f1' [error code 26]", 
        base::quote(NULL))
12: stop(sprintf(fmt, ...), call. = call.)
11: stopf("error downloading '%s' [%s]", url, msg, call. = FALSE)
10: renv_download_error(url, "error code %i", status)
9: download(url, destfile = destfile, type = "github", quiet = TRUE, 
       headers = headers)
8: renv_remotes_resolve_github_description(url, host, user, repo, 
       subdir, sha)
7: renv_remotes_resolve_github(remote)
6: renv_remotes_resolve_impl(spec, latest)
5: withCallingHandlers(renv_remotes_resolve_impl(spec, latest), 
       error = error)
4: FUN(X[[i]], ...)
3: lapply(x, f, ...)
2: map(packages, renv_remotes_resolve)
1: renv::install("eddelbuettel/digest")

Notes:

• The PATH command is for arm64 macs, the curl path will be different for x86_64.
• I discovered this issue when GitHub Actions started failing after the release of macOS-12/20240329.1, which updates curl from 8.6.0 to 8.7.1
• This will cause any GitHub Action that runs renv::install to fail, although renv::restore still works
• On the Windows runner, which uses curl 8.4.0, renv::install succeeds
• See Test renv jabenninghoff/jbplot#49 for more detail

[jabenninghoff]

As a workaround for GitHub Actions, you can call Sys.setenv(RENV_DOWNLOAD_METHOD = "libcurl") before renv::install(), as shown in jabenninghoff/rtraining#98 (works on current Windows and macOS runners).

[kevinushey]

Thanks for the bug report. I believe this should be resolved by 565abf4 -- any chance you could take a look?

[jabenninghoff]

Thanks! Installing from the latest commit (7f423f9) does resolve the issue, running:

renv::install("rstudio/renv")
# (restart R)
Sys.setenv(PATH = paste0("/opt/home brew/opt/curl/bin:", Sys.getenv("PATH")))
renv::install("eddelbuettel/digest")

is successful.