This is likely a question and not a bug. Any help would be much appreciated.

My issue is that I am trying to use renv projects others on my team have created or simply create my own project and renv doesn't ever seem to recognize that the project exists. A simple example is pasted below. The symptom of interest is that each call to snapshot or restore only ever responds with "It looks like you've called renv::snapshot() in a project that hasn't been activate yet." I can't seem to get past this infinite loop. In addition, if I use renv::install followed by status it says my project is up to date, but the lockfile never changes and only ever has renv recorded.

At one point I thought this was due to OneDrive and the backup behavior that creates a Documents folder at a different path, but now OneDrive sync, backup, is disabled for all of these folders and completely unliked and uninstalled.

Example - create a new folder C:/Users/gueng/Documents/renvTest

Restarting R session...

> renv::init()
The following package(s) will be updated in the lockfile:

# RSPM -----------------------------------------------------------------------
- renv   [* -> 1.0.7]

The version of R recorded in the lockfile will be updated:
- R      [* -> 4.4.0]

- Lockfile written to "~/renvTest/renv.lock".

Restarting R session...

> renv::snapshot()
It looks like you've called renv::snapshot() in a project that hasn't been activated yet.
How would you like to proceed? 

1: Activate the project and use the project library.
2: Do not activate the project and use the current library paths.
3: Cancel and resolve the situation another way.

Selection: 3
- Operation canceled.
> renv::install("dplyr")
The following package(s) will be installed:
- dplyr [1.1.4]
These packages will be installed into "C:/Users/gueng/AppData/Local/R/win-library/4.4".

Do you want to proceed? [Y/n]: Y

# Installing packages --------------------------------------------------------
- Installing dplyr ...                          OK [copied from cache in 0.25s]
Successfully installed 1 package in 0.3 seconds.
> renv::status()
No issues found -- the project is in a consistent state.
> renv::snapshot()
It looks like you've called renv::snapshot() in a project that hasn't been activated yet.
How would you like to proceed? 

1: Activate the project and use the project library.
2: Do not activate the project and use the current library paths.
3: Cancel and resolve the situation another way.

Selection: 3
- Operation canceled

Session Info

Output of renv::diagnostics()

Can you confirm that the output of getwd() matches what you expect in each case? That is, is the working directory still renvTest after renv::init() is called and the session is restarted?

Are you using RStudio? If so, did you create a project, and open that project? Or are you just setting the working directory by hand?

I am working in an RStudio project and not setting the working directory by hand. getwd() is matching what is expected (the R project directory) both before and after calling renv::init().

I have the exact same problem, getwd() is correct as well.

Hi,

I have a similar issue. I prefer to report my problem here even if I am on GNU/Linux (tell me if I need to create a different issue).

I use R inside RStudio Desktop (all my system [OS, software and packages] is up-to-date). Note that I always use RStudio projects (.Rproj file) and never use setwd().

When I initialize renv with renv::init() in an existing directory (open in RStudio by clicking the .Rproj file), I have the following message:

## 0utput of renv::init() ----

- Linking packages into the project library ... Done!
The following package(s) will be updated in the lockfile:

# CRAN -----------------------------------------------------------------------
- callr       [* -> 3.7.6]
- cli         [* -> 3.6.3]
- desc        [* -> 1.4.3]
- fs          [* -> 1.6.5]
- glue        [* -> 1.8.0]
- lifecycle   [* -> 1.0.4]
- pkgbuild    [* -> 1.4.5]
- pkgload     [* -> 1.4.0]
- processx    [* -> 3.8.4]
- ps          [* -> 1.8.1]
- R6          [* -> 2.5.1]
- renv        [* -> 1.0.11]
- rlang       [* -> 1.1.4]
- rprojroot   [* -> 2.0.4]
- withr       [* -> 3.0.2]

The version of R recorded in the lockfile will be updated:
- R           [* -> 4.4.2]

- Lockfile written to "~/github/test/renv.lock".

Restarting R session...

At this stage, everything seems to be ok: the lockfile contains metadata of all required packages (pkgload and all the dependencies) and packages are "installed" in renv/library/.

This is confirmed by the message printed by renv::status():

## 0utput of renv::status() ----

No issues found -- the project is in a consistent state.

But when I run renv::snapshot(), renv seems to be not activated:

## 0utput of renv::snapshot() ----

It looks like you've called renv::snapshot() in a project that hasn't been activated yet.
How would you like to proceed? 

1: Activate the project and use the project library.
2: Do not activate the project and use the current library paths.
3: Cancel and resolve the situation another way.

If I select 1, the R session restarts, but renv is still not activated. I can do this again and again, renv remains deactivated.

If I add a new package in my code and run renv::status() the new package is detected:

## 0utput of renv::status() ----

The following package(s) are in an inconsistent state:

 package installed recorded used
 remotes y         n        y   

See `?renv::status` for advice on resolving these issues.

But I cannot register this package in the lockfile.

Note, I use my own User .Rprofile located in ~/.config/R/.Rprofile, but no Project .Rprofile (except the one created by renv).

Here is some additional information:

Session info

renv diagnostics

NB I tried renv on Windows 11 (latest versions of R and renv) and everything works fine.

Thanks.

Can you try the following and let me know what you see?

trace(renv:::renv_project_loaded, quote({
  print(project)
  print(renv:::the$project_path)
}))

renv::snapshot()

Does setting options(renv.config.activate.prompt = FALSE) help as a workaround?

Thanks for your quick feedback!

When I run the first code, I have:

trace(renv:::renv_project_loaded, quote({
  print(project)
  print(renv:::the$project_path)
}))

## Tracing function "renv_project_loaded" in package "renv (not-exported)"
## [1] "renv_project_loaded"

renv::snapshot()

## Tracing renv_project_loaded(project) on entry 
## [1] "/home/nicolas/github/test"
## NULL
## It looks like you've called renv::snapshot() in a project that hasn't been activated yet.
## How would you like to proceed? 

## 1: Activate the project and use the project library.
## 2: Do not activate the project and use the current library paths.
## 3: Cancel and resolve the situation another way.

When I modify the global option renv.config.activate.prompt, I can update the lockfile with renv::snapshot():

options(renv.config.activate.prompt = FALSE)

renv::snapshot()

## The following package(s) will be updated in the lockfile:
## 
## # CRAN -----------------------------------------------------------------------
## - remotes   [* -> 2.5.0]

## Do you want to proceed? [Y/n]: y
## - Lockfile written to "~/github/test/renv.lock".

renv::status()

## No issues found -- the project is in a consistent state.

This hack also works after removing a package (here remotes):

renv::snapshot()

## The following package(s) will be updated in the lockfile:

## # CRAN -----------------------------------------------------------------------
## - remotes   [2.5.0 -> *]

## Do you want to proceed? [Y/n]: y

## - Lockfile written to "~/github/test/renv.lock".

renv::status()

## No issues found -- the project is in a consistent state.

Strange; I would have expected at least some project name to be indicated.

Are you seeing a message like:

- Project '~/project/path' loaded. [renv 1.0.11]

when R is started for this project? Are you launching R in the working directory of the project you're working in? Does the project folder contain a .Rprofile, and is that invoking source("renv/activate.R")?

Here is my answer.

• No, the renv message is not displayed on R startup. And it is not displayed when running renv::activate().
• I launch RStudio by double-clicking the .Rproj file.
• Yes, I have the .Rprofile created by renv at the root of the project, and it contains the line source("renv/activate.R").

And my project structure:

.
├── .Rprofile
├── renv/
│   ├── activate.R
│   ├── library/
│   └── settings.json
├── renv.lock
├── test.R
└── test.Rproj

I don't know if this can help, but I have changed the location of my R dotfiles by adding this line in the file /etc/R/Renviron:

R_ENVIRON_USER=${HOME}/.config/R/.Renviron

And I have these lines in the ~/.config/R/.Renviron:

R_PROFILE_USER=~/.config/R/.Rprofile
R_LIBS_USER=~/.local/bin/R/%p-library/%v

I don't have any issue when installing packages and my user-level .Renviron and .Rprofile are correctly loaded by R at startup. But maybe this can explain why renv has trouble to activate.

I launch RStudio by double-clicking the .Rproj file.

Thanks, this is the bit of information I was missing. I can reproduce in this scenario, but I suspect the issue here is an RStudio one. I'll see if I can get this fixed up on the RStudio side.

Sorry, I misspoke; I'm still not able to reproduce. But I suspect that the problem lies in your .Renviron definition. By setting:

R_PROFILE_USER=~/.config/R/.Rprofile

you are overriding R's default behavior, in which it will first attempt to look for a .Rprofile in the current working directory, then the user home directory. For reference:

https://github.com/wch/r-source/blob/dcce8baeaa14a527be1b7b688e0f44eb9f7022f7/src/unix/sys-unix.c#L67-L88

In short; you'll need to stop setting R_PROFILE_USER in this way if you want to use renv, or you'll need to manually load a project .Rprofile from your user .Rprofile if you want to continue doing this.

Thanks for your feedback.

Indeed, I commented the line R_PROFILE_USER=~/.config/R/.Rprofile in my User .Renviron (~/.config/R/.Renviron) and it works: I can see the renv message on R startup.

So, I followed your second recommendation and patched my problem by adding this code chunk in my User .Rprofile (~/.config/R/.Rprofile):

.First <- function() {
  if (file.exists("./.Rprofile")) {
    source("./.Rprofile")
  }
}

And renv is now working as usual.

## - Project '~/github/test' loaded. [renv 1.0.11]

Thanks and sorry for the inconvenience. Nicolas

No worries! I appreciate the report, and it'll help others who have configured R in a similar way.