[R] URL error when trying to use help function in R [Sec: UNOFFICIAL]

[Petr PIKAL]

Hi

I had similar issue and it was solved by setting proxy in browser 
preferences to

do not use proxy server for 127.0.0.1

and it helped.

Regards
Petr
 

r-help-bounces at r-project.org napsal dne 10.09.2010 08:18:53:

> On 09/10/2010 01:03 AM, David Winsemius wrote:
> > 
> > On Sep 9, 2010, at 6:34 PM, Gosse, Michelle wrote:
> > 
> >> Greetings,
> >>
> >> I am using R version 2.11.1 on a Dell computer, via a VMware 
> >> connection to a remote server. My browser version is IE 
> >> 8.0.6001.18702 and the OS is some corporate version of Microsoft XP.
> >>
> >> I'm trying to learn more about the tapply function , so I typed ? 
> >> tapply into the command line. This opened up a browser window with 
> >> url http://127.0.0.1:28138/library/base/html/tapply.html which is 
> >> giving me an error message.
> >> I receive the same problem when trying for help on other commands, 
> >> e.g. ?table http://127.0.0.1:28138/library/base/html/table.html and ? 

> >> log http://127.0.0.1:28138/library/base/html/Log.html
> >>
> >> I did a whois on 127.0.0.1
> > 
> > That should always be your own computer. The browser is trying to 
> > reach a server on itself over port 28138 and either the port is 
> > blocked or you don't have the documentation at that location.
> 
> The _real_ problem is likely that the server is really running on the
> remote computer. Substituting the remote server name for 127.0.0.1 is
> not unlikely to make things work. (Notwithstanding firewalls and the 
like).
> 
> It is a generic weakness of our current dynamic HTML setup, or of
> current browser technology if you like. Same thing with file:// URLs --
> if you try to view them in a browser and you already have a browser on
> your display, but running on a different machine than the one with the
> file, you get a "file not found". So when R on machine B wants to
> display a help page, it sends a message to the browser to connect to R's
> own server on B  by specifying a port on localhost (127.0.0.1), but if
> this request gets forwarded to a browser on machine A, then it goes
> looking for a server on _its_ localhost, i.e. machine A, and it isn't
> there...
> 
> I suppose we could do somewhat better, but I don't feel too confident
> about the various platform issues. As far as I can see, we currently
> hardcode "http://127.0.0.1" inside the help print method in
> utils:::print.help_file_with_topics(), and I suspect we could make that
> a user option, or try to be more intelligent about finding the machine's
> own IP address.
> 
> A pragmatic way out is always options(help_type="text").
> 
> 
> -- 
> Peter Dalgaard
> Center for Statistics, Copenhagen Business School
> Phone: (+45)38153501
> Email: pd.mes at cbs.dk  Priv: PDalgd at gmail.com
> 
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