[R] png-generation from script (non-X11 env) now broken?

[Jeff Newmiller]

This is really not new... Google is your friend... http://bit.ly/1fCUnQH... or read FAQ 7.19. The fact that this "changed" for you seems more like something changed on your end... did your admin remove X11 from your system?
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Sent from my phone. Please excuse my brevity.

On February 25, 2014 10:36:29 AM PST, David Wolfskill <r at catwhisker.org> wrote:
>Since ... hmmm.. May 2012, I've had a cron-initiated script running
>monthly to extract some data and generate some numeric tables and
>plots (in PNG format).
>
>In its "normal" mode, the script automagically sends its results
>to a small handful of managers on the first of each month.  Out of
>self-defense, I set up a "preview" run several days before the real
>one; the preview doesn't go quite as high in the management chain.
>
>This morning, I found a message in my mailbox from such a preview run:
>
>| Error in .External2(C_X11, paste("png::", filename, sep = ""),
>g$width,  :
>|   unable to start device PNG
>| Calls: gen_build_histogram -> png
>| In addition: Warning message:
>| In png(filename = fn, height = height, width = width, units = "in", 
>:
>|   unable to open connection to X11 display ''
>| Execution halted
>
>[This was running R-3.0.2_1 in FreeBSD/amd64 9.2-STABLE 
>r262323M/262357:902506, built Sun Feb 23 05:14:37 PST 2014.]
>
>I admit that I haven't been following changes in R very closely --
>the script had been running reliably for over a year, and it's not
>one of the fires I've been fighting recently.
>
>But the implication -- that png() was suddenly[1] changed so that it
>requires the ability to connect to an X11 display -- seemed peculiar
>enough that I would have thought a quick search would lead me to soe
>discussion of a change of this magnitude, rationale, and what folks
>might do to mitigate the effects.
>
>Based on one message I found (from 02 Mar 2008!), I did take a look at
>"help png" output, and saw the reference there to bitmap().  I tried
>...
>hacking ... my functions to use "bitmap(fn, ...)" instead of
>"png(filename = fn, ...)", but that looks as if it's leading me astray:
>
>| Error in strwidth(legend, units = "user", cex = cex, font =
>text.font) : 
>|   family 'mono' not included in postscript() device
>| Calls: gen_build_histogram -> legend -> strwidth
>| Execution halted
>
>
>So... what's someone who wants to use R to generate PNG-format files
>from an environment that is bereft of X11 to do?
>
>
>1: "Suddenly" because it *had* been working up to 01 Feb 2014, at
>least.
>
>[I'll be happy to sumamrize responses that aren't sent to the list.]
>
>Peace,
>david