I'm not an OS X user, but two things you might look into/help you troubleshoot:
1. Because you said it only happens when you try to overwrite an existing PDF, could it be that there is another process holding onto (=locking) the PDF file that you're trying to write to? For instance, are you viewing it at the same time? 2. What happens if you create a dummy dummy.txt file, and then try to overwrite that (with the same name - so no *.pdf)? Does that work/not work? If it works, it means there's something special with *.pdf files. If not, then ... ?!?. My $.02 /Henrik PS. I think Wolfgang's point is that few people will spent time troubleshooting obsolete versions of R (unless they're on the same version), meaning the chances for feedback/troubleshooting on this is much smaller than if it could be confirmed we a more up-to-date version of R. Because if it does given a problem in a new version, there is nothing really to fix. Having said this, any feedback that might >= 1 person is always useful. On Mon, Apr 11, 2016 at 2:35 PM, Neil French Collier <neilander...@gmail.com> wrote: > Dear Wolfgang, > > Thanks for your response. > > No, I haven't tried doing the complete reinstallation as you suggest. If I > recall correctly, this has happened on previous occasions but like I said > in my email it's not all that disruptive to my workflow. It's more like a > 'first world problem'. > > I was encouraged to submit the query because I had correspondence with > someone involved with R development: "this shouldn't be happening" was the > advice I received. I use R a lot but I'm not deeply knowledgable about it's > inner workings. > > To be frank, I really don't care if this is resolved. I was just trying to > help the R development group after receiving advice that it might be > important. > > Again, thanks for your help. > > Cheers > > Neil > > On Mon, Apr 11, 2016 at 6:41 PM, Wolfgang Huber <whu...@embl.de> wrote: > >> Dear Neil >> >> Have you tried with completely uninstalling your R, and reinstalling a >> more recent version (e.g. 3.2.4 right now). >> And then the same with your operating system - OS X is currently at >> 10.11.4. >> There is likely not much interest (or benefit) in chasing such things in >> obsolete versions. >> >> And I think R-help would be the more appropriate place for this kind of >> question. >> Wolfgang >> >> > On Apr 11, 2016, at 18:37 GMT+2, Neil French Collier < >> neilander...@gmail.com> wrote: >> > >> > Dear colleagues, >> > >> > I wish to report a problem I encounter when trying to save a graphic to >> > file. When I produce a graphic and try to save it R becomes unresponsive >> > and I must force quit, and then restart R. The problem occurs when I try >> to >> > overwrite an existing graphic: for example when I made changes to the >> > graphic and want to save the graphic using the original file name. It >> only >> > happens when I use the menus to save files, not using script. It doesn't >> > happen when I save it as a new file. So, like this: >> > >> > 1. Make the graphic >> > 2. Click File -> Save -> click on existing file name >> > 3. Colour wheel appears and R is unresponsive. >> > >> > Reproducible example: >> > >> > x <- seq(1,10) >> > y <- x^2 >> > plot(x,y, type="l") # Save as new file, all fine. >> > >> > #Change plot and save as old plot file name: >> > >> > plot(x,y, type="l", col=2) >> > >> > # Click File -> Save >> > # 'Save quartz to PDF file' box opens >> > # Click on existing file name >> > # Colour wheel >> > >> > Here is the sessionInfo(): >> > >> > R version 3.2.2 (2015-08-14) >> > Platform: x86_64-apple-darwin13.4.0 (64-bit) >> > Running under: OS X 10.11.1 (El Capitan) >> > >> > locale: >> > [1] en_US.UTF-8/en_US.UTF-8/en_US.UTF-8/C/en_US.UTF-8/en_US.UTF-8 >> > >> > attached base packages: >> > [1] stats graphics grDevices utils datasets methods base >> > >> > I'm not sure if this is worthy of reporting but I was encouraged to >> submit >> > a report. It doesn't really make a huge impact on my workflow, but it can >> > be annoying. >> > >> > -- >> > Cheers, >> > >> > Neil >> > >> > Neil French Collier, PhD >> > Faculty of Sustainability >> > Leuphana University Lüneburg >> > Rotenbleicher Weg 67 >> > 21335 Lueneburg >> > Germany >> > >> > Twitter: @foodsecbio >> > email: coll...@leuphana.de >> > Google Scholar >> > < >> https://scholar.google.com.au/citations?hl=en&user=xVdc-dsAAAAJ&view_op=list_works&sortby=pubdate >> > >> > Ideas for Sustainability <https://ideas4sustainability.wordpress.com> >> > >> > [[alternative HTML version deleted]] >> > >> > ______________________________________________ >> > R-devel@r-project.org mailing list >> > https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-devel >> >> Wolfgang >> >> Wolfgang Huber >> Principal Investigator, EMBL Senior Scientist >> Genome Biology Unit >> European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) >> Heidelberg, Germany >> >> wolfgang.hu...@embl.de >> http://www.huber.embl.de >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> > > > -- > Cheers, > > Neil > > Neil French Collier, PhD > Faculty of Sustainability > Leuphana University Lüneburg > Rotenbleicher Weg 67 > 21335 Lueneburg > Germany > > Twitter: @foodsecbio > email: coll...@leuphana.de > Google Scholar > <https://scholar.google.com.au/citations?hl=en&user=xVdc-dsAAAAJ&view_op=list_works&sortby=pubdate> > Ideas for Sustainability <https://ideas4sustainability.wordpress.com> > > [[alternative HTML version deleted]] > > ______________________________________________ > R-devel@r-project.org mailing list > https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-devel ______________________________________________ R-devel@r-project.org mailing list https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-devel