"Internal error, no task running and cannot select new task" while installing knitr

[zkamvar]

I am getting an internal error while trying to install knitr:

tmplib <- tempfile()
dir.create(tmplib)
pak::cache_delete()
pak::pkg_install("knitr", lib = tmplib, upgrade = FALSE, dependencies = FALSE)

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> tmplib <- tempfile()
> dir.create(tmplib)
> 
> pak::cache_delete() 
> pak::pkg_install("knitr", lib = tmplib, upgrade = FALSE, dependencies = FALSE)
ℹ Loading metadata database
✔ Loading metadata database ... done

 
→ Will install 1 package.
→ Will download 1 CRAN package (896.12 kB).
+ knitr   1.36 [bld][dl] (896.12 kB)
ℹ Getting 1 pkg (896.12 kB)
✔ Got knitr 1.36 (source) (896.12 kB)

Error: <callr_remote_error: Internal error, no task running and cannot select new task>
 in process 66184 
-->
<simpleError in select_next_task(state): Internal error, no task running and cannot select new task>

 Stack trace:

 12. (function (...)  ...
 13. base:::withCallingHandlers(cli_message = function(msg) { ...
 14. get("pkg_install_do_plan", asNamespace("pak"))(...)
 15. pkgdepends::install_package_plan(plan = plan, lib = lib, num_workers = num_ ...
 16. base:::withCallingHandlers({ ...
 17. pkgdepends:::select_next_task(state)
 18. base:::stop("Internal error, no task running and cannot select new task")
 19. base:::.handleSimpleError(function (e)  ...
 20. h(simpleError(msg, call))
 21. base:::stop(e)
 22. (function (e)  ...

 x Internal error, no task running and cannot select new task 

Execution halted

Context

I ran into this on GitHub Actions when I was trying to shoehorn a solution for r-lib/pak#343. I was taking the package names from a lockfile (this lockfile in particular) and tried to install them.

Sometimes I get the "no task running and cannot select new task" error, but I have also gotten a "subscript out of bounds" error

[gaborcsardi]

Yes, that seems like a bug, triggered by the rarely used dependencies = FALSE option.

Reprex:

tmplib <- tempfile()
p <- pkgdepends::new_pkg_installation_proposal(
  "knitr?source", 
  config = list(library = tmplib, dependencies = FALSE)
)
#> ℹ Creating library directory: 
#> /var/folders/ph/fpcmzfd16rgbbk8mxvy9m2_h0000gn/T//RtmpXI5ULd/file4c42498721d7

p$solve()
p$download()
#> ℹ No downloads are needed, 1 pkg (896.12 kB) is cached

p$install()
#> Error in select_next_task(state) :
#>   Internal error, no task running and cannot select new task

p$get_install_plan()$dependencies
#> [[1]]
#> [1] "evaluate" "highr"    "stringr"  "yaml"     "xfun"

p$get_install_plan()$dep_types
#> [[1]]
#> character(0)

$dependencies should be probably empty if $dep_types is empty.

[gaborcsardi]

Why would you use dependencies = FALSE, btw?

[zkamvar]

The original context was extracting packages from a renv.lock file, where the dependencies were enumerated. I set dependencies = FALSE because I (perhaps foolishly) thought that this would speed things up.

[gaborcsardi]

Well, if you manually extract the dependencies from the renv JSON and pass them to pak one by one, that'll not speed things up, as there is no concurrency. It is also hard to do because you would need to install them in the right dependency order.

If you pass all of them at once that might work. Or just wait for https://github.com/r-lib/pak/issues/343

[zkamvar]

If you pass all of them at once that might work.

I thought so too, and this is what I did (the above was just a MWE). Theoretically, there is no performance hit if I specify dependencies = TRUE when I pass the dependencies from a fully-provisioned {renv} file?

[gaborcsardi]

Maybe? pak will still resolve all dependencies again, and might en up with different package versions of course, if you just pass the package names. Or won't be able to find a package if it is from a non-standard source.

[klmr]

I’ve just encountered this error too.

My use-case is that I am positive that the dependencies are already all installed, and leaving off dependencies = FALSE fails because some of the the dependencies cannot be found in the CRAN archive. For example,

pak::pak('r-lib/lintr')

Currently yields the following for me:

✖ Failed to download 1 packages 
Error:
! error in pak subprocess
Caused by error:
! Failed to download xml2 from `https://cloud.r-project.org//src/contrib/xml2_1.3.3.tar.gz` and `https://cloud.r-project.org//src/contrib/Archive/xml2/xml2_1.3.3.tar.gz`.

[gaborcsardi]

@klmr What version and build of pak is this? What os? Also, your error looks different from what the OP was seeing, no?

[klmr]

@gaborcsardi I'll report this independently as a bug (and I just edited the error message after updating, apologies).

I posted here to justify why one might be using dependencies = FALSE (in which case I am seeing the same error message as OP).

[gaborcsardi]

The cran archive is a red herring, pak tries both URLs and the first should be clearly working, at least it is right now for me.

[klmr]

Cross-reference to the other issue: r-lib/pak#484