[R] vanilla session in R Gui or RStudio

[Henrik Bengtsson]

As Jeff says, it might be that you have a ~/.Rprofile file with
instructions to load packages when R starts.  It could also be that
you have a .RData file, which is saved if you answer yes to:

> Save workspace image? [y/n/c]: y

when you quit R.   If this file exists, then R loads it and all the
objects you had when you saved it. If there are objects associated
with packages, then that will cause those packages to be loaded when R
starts.  To avoid this, you need to move or delete the .RData file.

You can use:

> startup::startup(debug = TRUE, dryrun = TRUE)

to get detailed information on what happens when R starts, e.g. if you
have a .Rprofile file and an .RData file.  That might help you to
track down what's going on.  The 'startup' package is on CRAN.

I don't know of an easy way to restart RGui or RStudio Console in
vanilla mode, similarly how you can start R at the terminal with 'R
--vanilla'.

/Henrik

On Thu, Oct 22, 2020 at 4:14 PM Jeff Newmiller <jdnewmil using dcn.davis.ca.us> wrote:
>
> Have you looked into your .Rprofile file? Loading packages is not something R normally does without your telling it to do so, but many people forget that they have done so.
>
> On October 22, 2020 3:47:04 PM PDT, Michael L Friendly <friendly using yorku.ca> wrote:
> >[env: Windows, R 3.6.6]
> >
> >When I start R from the R Gui icon or from RStudio, I get a large
> >number of packages loaded via a namespace. Not entirely clear where
> >these come from.
> >
> >As a result, I often run into problems updating packages because
> >something is already loaded.  How can start a new gui session with
> >minimal packages loaded?
> >
> >> sessionInfo()
> >R version 3.6.3 (2020-02-29)
> >Platform: x86_64-w64-mingw32/x64 (64-bit)
> >Running under: Windows 7 x64 (build 7601) Service Pack 1
> >
> >Matrix products: default
> >
> >locale:
> >[1] LC_COLLATE=English_United States.1252  LC_CTYPE=English_United
> >States.1252
> >[3] LC_MONETARY=English_United States.1252 LC_NUMERIC=C
> >
> >[5] LC_TIME=English_United States.1252
> >
> >attached base packages:
> >[1] stats     graphics  grDevices utils     datasets  methods   base
> >
> >
> >loaded via a namespace (and not attached):
> >[1] statmod_1.4.34   xfun_0.18        tidyselect_1.1.0 reshape2_1.4.4
> >purrr_0.3.4      mitools_2.4
> >[7] splines_3.6.3    lattice_0.20-41  coefplot_1.2.6   carData_3.0-4
> >colorspace_1.4-1 vctrs_0.3.4
> >[13] generics_0.0.2   htmltools_0.5.0  yaml_2.2.1       survival_3.2-7
> > rlang_0.4.7      pillar_1.4.6
> >[19] nloptr_1.2.2.2   glue_1.4.2       DBI_1.1.0        lifecycle_0.2.0
> > plyr_1.8.6       stringr_1.4.0
> >[25] effects_4.2-0    munsell_0.5.0    gtable_0.3.0     evaluate_0.14
> > knitr_1.30       fansi_0.4.1
> >[31] Rcpp_1.0.5       scales_1.1.1     useful_1.2.6     fs_1.4.2
> > lme4_1.1-23      packrat_0.5.0
> >[37] ggplot2_3.3.2    digest_0.6.25    stringi_1.4.6    insight_0.9.6
> > dplyr_1.0.2      survey_4.0
> >[43] grid_3.6.3       cli_2.1.0        tools_3.6.3      magrittr_1.5
> > tibble_3.0.4     crayon_1.3.4
> >[49] pkgconfig_2.0.3  ellipsis_0.3.1   MASS_7.3-53      Matrix_1.2-18
> > reprex_0.3.0     assertthat_0.2.1
> >[55] minqa_1.2.4      rmarkdown_2.4    rstudioapi_0.11  R6_2.4.1
> > boot_1.3-25      nnet_7.3-14
> >[61] nlme_3.1-149     compiler_3.6.3
> >>
> >
> >Michael Friendly     Email: friendly AT yorku DOT ca
> >Professor, Psychology Dept. & Former Chair, ASA Statistical Graphics
> >Section
> >York University      Voice: 416 736-2100 x66249
> >4700 Keele Street    Web: http://www.datavis.ca | @datavisFriendly
> >Toronto, ONT  M3J 1P3 CANADA
> >
> >______________________________________________
> >R-help using r-project.org mailing list -- To UNSUBSCRIBE and more, see
> >https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help
> >PLEASE do read the posting guide
> >http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html
> >and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code.
>
> --
> Sent from my phone. Please excuse my brevity.
>
> ______________________________________________
> R-help using r-project.org mailing list -- To UNSUBSCRIBE and more, see
> https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help
> PLEASE do read the posting guide http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html
> and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code.