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Resolving the "Could not detect R" Error

Jessi Boggia
  • Updated

Within Posit Connect log files:

Could not detect R

The above errors indicate that R cannot be detected in the installation. This most often occurs when the administrator has upgraded from an earlier version of Posit Connect to the release 2022.09 or above. Releases after 2022.09 do not install R automatically as R is no longer a requirement to run Posit Connect as of the September 2022 release.

The error can be resolved in two different ways depending on how the administrator wishes to manage R.  For automatic R scanning, set the below in rstudio-connect.gcfg:

; /etc/rstudio-connect/rstudio-connect.gcfg
[R]
ExecutableScanning = true
ExecutableSystemScanning = true

To manually point to specific instances of R; disable R.ExecutableScanning and point the configuration file to where the instances' executables are installed. This configuration should point directly to the binaries. E.g:

; /etc/rstudio-connect/rstudio-connect.gcfg
[R]
ExecutableScanning = false
Executable = "/opt/R/4.1.2/bin/R"
Executable = "/opt/R/4.1.3/bin/R"

After setting these attributes in the rstudio-connect.gcfg file, please restart Posit Connect and retry running the application. 

For more details on those settings see the admin guide here: https://docs.posit.co/connect/admin/r/index.html#r-versions 

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