Skip to content
R for the Rest of Us Logo
R for the Rest of Us Logo

Update Everything

This lesson is locked

Get access to all lessons in this course.

Transcript

Click on the transcript to go to that point in the video. Please note that transcripts are auto generated and may contain minor inaccuracies.

Your Turn

  1. Update R

  2. Update RStudio

  3. Update/re-install all of your R packages

Have any questions? Put them below and we will help you out!

You need to be signed-in to comment on this post. Login.

Matt M

at 1:15 and 2:45, you mention "link below" for R and RStudio. I don't see link below (but obviously could still get there).

When updating packages, several keep showing up as having newer versions available. gtsummary, insight, prismatic, rvest, and usethis. I've hit Select All and Install Updates several times. But when I click on Update Packages again, the same 5 show up.

David Keyes

David Keyes

October 18, 2021

Thanks! I just updated the Your Turn instructions to include the links.

On the package updates, if you quit RStudio and open it back up, do you still see those packages as needing to be updated?

Matt M

Yes, I've restarted RStudio (and my computer) and still see them as needing to be updated.

David Keyes

David Keyes

October 19, 2021

Very strange! First of all, the most important thing is to have the gitcreds and usethis packages up to date. As long as you have the latest versions of those, you should be fine.

However, if we do want to figure out what's going on, let's do this: If you type install.packages("PACKAGE NAME") in the console, that should also update your package. Why don't you try that with one package and lee me know if it works?

Ben Skutnik

Ben Skutnik

October 6, 2022

Do those packages warn you about a non-zero exit status when you do try to update them?

David Keyes

David Keyes

October 6, 2022

They should warn you if they don't update correctly. Are you getting that message?

Matthew Reichardt

Matthew Reichardt

October 18, 2022

Often when I update packages, not everything updates, so if I click on update packages again, I still see some listed. Sometimes I can manually remove them and manually re-install them, but that doesn't always work. For example, after I updated R and RStudio, and then ran update packages, I am still seeing commonmark has an installed version of 1.8.0 and an available version of 1.8.1, but nothing I can seem to do updates to the newer version.

Charlie Hadley

Charlie Hadley

October 19, 2022

Hi Matt,

Are you describing using the point and click interface for modifying packages in the "Packages" tab?

Thanks, Charlie

Matthew Reichardt

Matthew Reichardt

October 19, 2022

Hi Charlie, Yes, I think. When packages are not updated with the update button, I've had some luck manually removing the package, by clicking the "X" button in the packages tab and then running install.packages() for what I just removed. This, however, doesn't always work and is, obviously, cumbersome to do.

Charlie Hadley

Charlie Hadley

October 20, 2022

Unfortunately, I think the Packages tab is just not fit for purpose. It cause me frustration when I experimented with it and now actively encourage others against using it.

Instead, we can use remove.packages("ggtext") in the console to remove a package and install.packages("ggtext") to both install and update a package. If there's a new version of a package when you run install.packages() it will get you the new version. I'd recommend restarting RStudio between removing and installing packages. This can be done by selecting Session in the menu bar and selecting "Restart R".

Cheers, Charlie

Matt Kropp

Can I just use the top menu and click help-> Check for Updates to update R Studio?

David Keyes

David Keyes

October 25, 2022

That works too!