Thursday, January 17, 2013

Fix R Tcl/Tk dependency problem on Mac OS X by installing working Tcl/Tk

For some reason, if you just install R on Mac OS X, you don't have a working Tcl/Tk by default. The problem manifests itself like this:


> tkplot(g)
Loading required package: tcltk
Loading Tcl/Tk interface ... Error : .onLoad failed in loadNamespace() for 'tcltk', details:
  call: dyn.load(file, DLLpath = DLLpath, ...)
  error: unable to load shared object '/Library/Frameworks/R.framework/Versions/2.15/Resources/library/tcltk/libs/x86_64/tcltk.so':
  dlopen(/Library/Frameworks/R.framework/Versions/2.15/Resources/library/tcltk/libs/x86_64/tcltk.so, 10): Library not loaded: /usr/local/lib/libtcl8.5.dylib
  Referenced from: /Library/Frameworks/R.framework/Versions/2.15/Resources/library/tcltk/libs/x86_64/tcltk.so
  Reason: image not found
Error in tkplot(g) : tcl/tk library not available

There are other functions that depend on Tcl/Tk as well. It's particularly annoying that you don't see the problem when you install or even load a library, but only when you try to use a function that depends on Tcl/Tk.

Fortunately, there's an easy solution. You need these two things:

  1. X Windows for Mac OS X. You may already have this. If not, install it.
  2. A Tcl/Tk installation that actually works. This will do the trick. Just install!
After you have these two installed, things should work. I didn't even have to restart R.

> tkplot(g)
Loading required package: tcltk
Loading Tcl/Tk interface ... done

at

9 comments:

  1. AnonymousJune 22, 2013 at 9:29 AM

    Thanks so much! Fixed it straight away. Saved me hours of time.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Vladislav PetyukNovember 17, 2013 at 5:59 PM

    That fixed my problem with "qvalue" package.
    Thanks!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Bryan YangOctober 11, 2014 at 6:26 AM

    Thank you it's work for me!

    ReplyDelete
  4. AnonymousNovember 21, 2014 at 4:16 PM

    I have follow your instructions...but it didn't work for me. I recently updated R. Do you think that can be related? I was able to use packages that now I can't. Any suggestions?

    ReplyDelete
  5. AaronNovember 22, 2014 at 8:09 PM

    Hi Anonymous! I don't know what your problem is!

    ReplyDelete
  6. VeronicaNovember 23, 2014 at 12:17 PM

    Sorry I did not explain myself better. I have the following error from R when I try to use one package from R.
    Error : .onLoad failed in loadNamespace() for 'tcltk', details:
    call: system2("otool", c("-L", shQuote(DLL)), stdout = TRUE)
    error: error in running command
    Error: package or namespace load failed for ‘vegan’
    sh: otool: command not found

    I was able to use this package before I updated to the newest R version. I downloaded what you suggested in your post, but it is still giving me this error.
    Cheers!!

    ReplyDelete
  7. UnknownDecember 30, 2014 at 10:05 AM

    I have the same problem Veronica. I am trying to use geoR package The error is
    sh: otool: command not found
    Error : .onLoad failed in loadNamespace() for 'tcltk', details:
    call: system2("otool", c("-L", shQuote(DLL)), stdout = TRUE)
    error: error in running command
    Error: package or namespace load failed for ‘geoR’

    I already downloaded and installed the packages that you suggested, but I still have the same problem. What can I do?

    ReplyDelete
  8. AnonymousApril 20, 2015 at 4:18 PM

    I have the same problem as Veronica and Maggy, installation did not resolve it. Weird.

    ReplyDelete
  9. UnknownAugust 9, 2016 at 2:14 PM

    Thank you!!!

    ReplyDelete