[R] rgl crash on windows 7

[Duncan Murdoch]

On 28/09/2017 7:15 PM, Kevin Wright wrote:
> 
> I have a co-worker who has installed R 3.4.2 on Windows 7.  When this 
> person tries to load the rgl package with
> library(rgl)
> A dialog box appears with the message:
> R for windows gui frontend has stopped working
> 
> I suspect a conflict problem with a dll, but I'm not sure how to 
> identify if this is the problem since R is crashing immediately.
> 
> Interestingly, when we start R and do NOT load rgl, but type this 
> WITHOUT parentheses:
> rgl:::.onUnload
> We get the same crash.

That will trigger a load of rgl, which will try to load the DLL.
> 
> On my laptop I can load rgl just fine, after loading rgl I see:
> 
> R> getLoadedDLLs()
>                                                                      
>   Filename Dynamic.Lookup
> base                                                                     
> base          FALSE
> methods       C:/Program 
> Files/R/R-3.4.1/library/methods/libs/x64/methods.dll          FALSE
> utils             C:/Program 
> Files/R/R-3.4.1/library/utils/libs/x64/utils.dll          FALSE
> digest                     
> c:/kw/R/win-library/3.4/digest/libs/x64/digest.dll           TRUE
> grDevices C:/Program 
> Files/R/R-3.4.1/library/grDevices/libs/x64/grDevices.dll          FALSE
> graphics    C:/Program 
> Files/R/R-3.4.1/library/graphics/libs/x64/graphics.dll          FALSE
> stats             C:/Program 
> Files/R/R-3.4.1/library/stats/libs/x64/stats.dll          FALSE
> Rcpp                           
> c:/kw/R/win-library/3.4/Rcpp/libs/x64/Rcpp.dll           TRUE
> htmltools           
>   c:/kw/R/win-library/3.4/htmltools/libs/x64/htmltools.dll          FALSE
> jsonlite               
> c:/kw/R/win-library/3.4/jsonlite/libs/x64/jsonlite.dll           TRUE
> tools             C:/Program 
> Files/R/R-3.4.1/library/tools/libs/x64/tools.dll          FALSE
> httpuv                     
> c:/kw/R/win-library/3.4/httpuv/libs/x64/httpuv.dll           TRUE
> mime                           
> c:/kw/R/win-library/3.4/mime/libs/x64/mime.dll           TRUE
> rgl                             
>   c:/kw/R/win-library/3.4/rgl/libs/x64/rgl.dll          FALSE
> 
> Can I manually load the DLLs and then load rgl?
> 
> Any tips on how to proceed would be appreciated.


I don't have access to Windows 7, but just tried the new R 3.4.2 with 
Windows 10, and like you, had no problems.

I'd suggest running update.packages(checkBuilt = TRUE) to make sure 
everything is current.  If that doesn't fix the problem, you probably 
need to run Rgui under a debugger like gdb to identify what the issue is 
--- but that's not a trivial thing to do.

If you want to just make random changes hoping that something might 
help, updating the graphics driver (or disabling hardware acceleration 
if that's something that it can do) could make a difference.

Duncan Murdoch