I get 'Error: '\U' used without hex digits in character string starting ""C:\U"' when starting R

I have the following problem when starting RStudio and when I try to compile a PDF from a .rnw format:

Error: '\U' used without hex digits in character string starting ""C:\U" 

When starting RStudio or just R, this is what is inside my console:

R version 3.4.0 (2017-04-21) -- "You Stupid Darkness" Copyright (C) 2017 The R Foundation for Statistical Computing Platform: x86_64-w64-mingw32/x64 (64-bit) R is free software and comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY. You are welcome to redistribute it under certain conditions. Type 'license()' or 'licence()' for distribution details. R is a collaborative project with many contributors. Type 'contributors()' for more information and 'citation()' on how to cite R or R packages in publications. Type 'demo()' for some demos, 'help()' for on-line help, or 'help.start()' for an HTML browser interface to help. Type 'q()' to quit R. Global .Rprofile loaded! Error: '\U' used without hex digits in character string starting ""C:\U" And this happens when I try to compile a PDF: Global .Rprofile loaded! Error: '\U' used without hex digits in character string starting ""C:\U" Execution halted 

This kind of appeared from one day to another, and I am not sure what has changed. I tried updating RStudio and my R version, but it did not help. I am running R on Windows.

How can I fix this issue?

8 Answers

I was able to solve this after all:

I had a section inside my .Rprofile file (in Documents) with "\" instead of "/". So I now changed

# Set mainfolder for PACKAGE package options(PACKAGE_MAINFOLDER="C:\Users\...") 

to

# Set mainfolder for PACKAGE package options(PACKAGE_MAINFOLDER="C:/Users/...") 

and that did the trick.

To make it work, just remove the C:\Users\edmar.campos.cardoso\Dropbox\ and replace all \ with / using the function setwd() to change the working directory in R.

Wrong way:

setwd('C:\Users\edmar.campos.cardoso\Dropbox\...') 

Right way:

setwd('/Users/) 

You can use \\ instead of \. This allows skipping from some characters such as \n which is the end of the line or \t which is tab.

For importing files in R, replace the '\' with (two) '\'. Single '\' probably reads it as escape sequence and hence the file path error.

I simply change the slash for backslash in the route of the file.

Example:
this instruction trigger the error. setwd("C:/Users\name\Desktop\RStudio")

Instruction fix:

setwd("C:/Users/name/Desktop/RStudio")

When you copy a directory address from properties in Windows and use it in R this happens you should easily use / instead of \.

Use two backward slashes instead of one as the argument. That will help you get the output.

For example, like this:

data<-read.csv("C:\\Users\\Vamsi\\Downloads\\pressure.csv") 

Instead of:

data<-read.csv("C:\Users\Vamsi\Downloads\pressure.csv") 

Open the CSV file and save as the file to your "My Documents". Then use this:

[MyData <- read.csv("Data.csv",header = TRUE)] 

If it’s text, just change read.csv to read.text.