How to prevent R Shiny app immediately crashing when launching locally - r

Question

My Shiny app suddenly is behaving n a strange manner whereby it opens briefly and then closes itself. There are no errors in the console. On my Mac, the app works fine. However, on Windows, the issue arises.
My complete code can be seen below.
Subsequently, Mac, or Windows, when I am using my full dataset .csv file, (as opposed to my small dummy test dataset), I receive an error input string 1 is invalid UTF-8. I have tried all suggestions here How to identify/delete non-UTF-8 characters in R but without any success. I have also used the CLEAN() function in Excel itself, and also tried read.csv("dummyData.csv, encoding = "UTF-8"), neither of which worked. I'm out of ideas.
Any help on both these issues would be fantastic.
library(shiny)
library(tidyverse)
library(DT)
# Reading the main_data which the shiny app depends on, Please make sure that the column names are same
main_data <- read_csv("dummyData.csv")
ui <- fluidPage(
fluidRow(column(12, tags$h2("Assignment Details"))),
sidebarLayout(
sidebarPanel(
width = 3,
tags$div(
align = "center",
tags$img(src = "logo.png", width = "120", height = "120")
),
fluidRow(
column(12, align = "center", tags$br(), tags$b("Filter data")),
column(12, selectInput("sector_filter", "Sector", unique(main_data$Sector), multiple = TRUE)),
column(12, selectInput("client_filter", "Client", unique(main_data$`Client Name`), multiple = TRUE)),
column(12, selectInput("service_filter", "Service", unique(main_data$Service), multiple = TRUE)),
column(12, selectInput("cost_filter", "Cost", unique(main_data$`Cost (Ex-Vat)`), multiple = TRUE)),
column(12, align = "center", actionLink("reset_filters", "Clear Filters/Reset", style = "color: #962693"))
)
),
mainPanel(
width = 9,
tabsetPanel(
tabPanel(
"Assignment Description",
uiOutput("assignment_description")
),
tabPanel(
"Data Table",
DTOutput("data_table")
)
)
)
)
)
server <- function(input, output, session) {
# Creating a new empty tibble (which is basically a data.frame) for filtering based on the filters selected
filtered_data <- tibble()
observeEvent(input$reset_filters, {
updateSelectInput(session, "sector_filter", selected = "")
updateSelectInput(session, "client_filter", selected = "")
updateSelectInput(session, "service_filter", selected = "")
updateSelectInput(session, "cost_filter", selected = "")
})
# The observe code block will be triggered everytime any reactive object from the UI is changed (In this case out filters)
observe({
# If all the inputs are empty, We will just send the whole data without the filters. Else we filter
print(input$sector_filter)
print(input$client_filter)
print(input$service_filter)
print(input$cost_filter)
print(unique(main_data$Sector))
sector_filter_values <- input$sector_filter
client_filter_values <- input$client_filter
service_filter_values <- input$service_filter
cost_filter_values <- input$cost_filter
if (is.null(input$sector_filter)) {
sector_filter_values <- unique(main_data$Sector)
}
if (is.null(input$client_filter)) {
client_filter_values <- unique(main_data$`Client Name`)
}
if (is.null(input$service_filter)) {
service_filter_values <- unique(main_data$Service)
}
if (is.null(input$cost_filter)) {
cost_filter_values <- unique(main_data$`Cost (Ex-Vat)`)
}
filtered_data <<- main_data %>%
filter(Sector %in% sector_filter_values, `Client Name` %in% client_filter_values,
Service %in% service_filter_values, `Cost (Ex-Vat)` %in% cost_filter_values)
# This is where the assignment description will be rendered
output$assignment_description <- renderUI({
filtered_data$title <- paste0(filtered_data$`Client Name`, " - ", filtered_data$`Assignment Name`)
HTML(
paste0(
"<br><span style='color: #962693'>", filtered_data$title,
"</span><br>", filtered_data$`Assignment Description`, "<br>"
)
)
})
# This is where the table is rendered. To customise the table visit here https://rstudio.github.io/DT/
output$data_table <- renderDT({
datatable(
filtered_data %>% select(`Client Name`, `Assignment Name`, `Sector`, `Service`, `Cost (Ex-Vat)`)
)
})
})
# Whenever a row from the table is selected the Assignment Description must change regardless the filters selected
observeEvent(input$data_table_rows_selected, {
print(input$data_table_rows_selected)
filtered_data_from_table <- filtered_data[input$data_table_rows_selected, ]
print(filtered_data_from_table)
output$assignment_description <- renderUI({
filtered_data_from_table$title <- paste0(filtered_data_from_table$`Client Name`, " - ", filtered_data_from_table$`Assignment Name`)
HTML(
paste0(
"<br><span style='color: #962693'>", filtered_data_from_table$title,
"</span><br>", filtered_data_from_table$`Assignment Description`, "<br>"
)
)
})
})
}
shinyApp(ui = ui, server = server)

Answer 1

I took a small modification of the top answer here:
How to identify/delete non-UTF-8 characters in R
Simply converting my columns via the below code fixed my issues.
df$`Column Name`<- iconv(df$`Column Name`, to = "UTF-8")