# Devtools not installed in latest builds **URL:** \ **Category:** R\ **Created:** [April 11, 2019, 4:29pm UTC](https://travis-ci.community/t/devtools-not-installed-in-latest-builds/2990 "2019-04-11T16:29:36Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 5\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![ressy](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex015/user_avatar/travis-ci.community/ressy/32/381_2.png) [@ressy](https://travis-ci.community/u/ressy)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2019, 4:29pm UTC](https://travis-ci.community/t/devtools-not-installed-in-latest-builds/2990/1 "2019-04-11T16:29:36Z")
My cron-enabled builds started failing in the past day or so due to a missing package, devtools, that ~~is listed in my DESCRIPTION file and~~ used to be installed as expected. Comparing logs with the previous build that worked I see that instead of devtools the remotes package is installed. An example previous working build: [https://travis-ci.org/ShawHahnLab/chiimp/jobs/506519381](https://travis-ci.org/ShawHahnLab/chiimp/jobs/506519381) A new failing build: [https://travis-ci.org/ShawHahnLab/chiimp/jobs/518494175](https://travis-ci.org/ShawHahnLab/chiimp/jobs/518494175) (This may be related to [https://travis-ci.community/t/2940](https://travis-ci.community/t/2940) though I don’t have the error given there.) ---
**Author:** ![ressy](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex015/user_avatar/travis-ci.community/ressy/32/381_2.png) [@ressy](https://travis-ci.community/u/ressy)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2019, 7:17pm UTC](https://travis-ci.community/t/devtools-not-installed-in-latest-builds/2990/2 "2019-04-11T19:17:08Z")
Clearing the cache and re-running made no difference, but for the time being I just copied the relevant install line from the working build into my .travis.yml in the before\_install step: ``` before_install: - Rscript -e 'install.packages(c("devtools"));if (!all(c("devtools") %in% installed.packages())) { q(status = 1, save = "no")}' ``` That seems to have done the trick. I’m still left puzzled as to why it stopped working in the first place, though. * * * Aha! > @jimhester so with the switch to the remotes package for Travis’ dependency handling we’ll need to toggle `use_devtools` in the config for the old behavior, is that right? ~~But since I have devtools in my own list of dependencies in the DESCRIPTION file, it should still get installed automatically, shouldn’t it?~~ **Apparently I never had it in there in the first place!** Sorry for the confusion. Mystery solved. I’ll add it in. Thanks! ---
**Author:** ![ressy](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex015/user_avatar/travis-ci.community/ressy/32/381_2.png) [@ressy](https://travis-ci.community/u/ressy)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2019, 8:15pm UTC](https://travis-ci.community/t/devtools-not-installed-in-latest-builds/2990/3 "2019-04-11T20:15:41Z")
Ah and I _did_ explicitly have devtools as a dependency in a feature branch, I just haven’t merged it yet. Just to add a quick summary since I made a mess of my last reply: - A project with an explicit dependency on devtools still works as expected (just tested) - A project that doesn’t need devtools itself should be fine letting Travis use the remotes package instead for dependency handling - A project with an implicit devtools dependency like mine had will break, but then, I shouldn’t have that situation happen anyway 😉 ---
**Author:** ![davidski](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex015/user_avatar/travis-ci.community/davidski/32/1562_2.png) [@davidski](https://travis-ci.community/u/davidski)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2019, 3:20pm UTC](https://travis-ci.community/t/devtools-not-installed-in-latest-builds/2990/4 "2019-04-18T15:20:30Z")
This snuck up on me as well. Also my bad for unstated dependencies. 😛 Short of tracking the entire travis-build repo, is there a good way of watching for R language build changes? Is there a changelog I should be watching? ---
**Author:** ![ressy](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex015/user_avatar/travis-ci.community/ressy/32/381_2.png) [@ressy](https://travis-ci.community/u/ressy)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2019, 1:39am UTC](https://travis-ci.community/t/devtools-not-installed-in-latest-builds/2990/5 "2019-04-19T01:39:44Z")
None that I could find. It looks like any updates in the master branch are what’s running in production (as far as I can tell). I guess we can keep an eye on those two ruby scripts, if that’s what defines Travis’ R support.