proxy problems for install_keras with Anaconda and RStudio - r

Question

I'm trying to install Keras by following the instructions here https://keras.rstudio.com/ when I'm using my office/work laptop.
When I get to this line install_keras() and it fails with this rather long error message shown here in its entirety:
Creating r-tensorflow conda environment for TensorFlow installation...
Fetching package metadata ...
CondaHTTPError: HTTP 000 CONNECTION FAILED for url
<https://repo.continuum.io/pkgs/main/win-64/repodata.json.bz2>
Elapsed: -
An HTTP error occurred when trying to retrieve this URL.
HTTP errors are often intermittent, and a simple retry will get you on
your way.
ProxyError(MaxRetryError("HTTPSConnectionPool(host='repo.continuum.io',
port=443): Max retries exceeded with url: /pkgs/main/win-6
/repodata.json.bz2 (Caused by ProxyError('Cannot connect to proxy.',
NewConnectionError('<urllib3.connection.VerifiedHTTPSConnection object at
0x000001ACD38FB780>: Failed to establish a new connection: [Errno 11001]
getaddrinfo failed',)))",),)
Error: Error 1 occurred creating conda environment r-tensorflow
In addition: Warning message:
running command '"C:\PROGRA~3\ANACON~1\Scripts\conda.exe" "create" "--
yes" "--name" "r-tensorflow" "python=3.6"' had status 1
and it says something about Anaconda. So I dutifully install the entire Anaconda beast from this Anaconda distribution.
Now when I try install_keras() I get this new error message about a proxy:
Using r-tensorflow conda environment for TensorFlow installation
Determining latest release of TensorFlow...Error in
open.connection(con, "rb") :
Unsupported proxy 'https://proxy-server.mycompanyname.com:8080', libcurl
is built without the HTTPS-proxy support.
I reviewed Jeroen's libcurl suggestion which yields the following responses:
curl::ie_proxy_info()
$AutoDetect
[1] FALSE
$AutoConfigUrl
[1] "http://mcd-server/mcd/proxy.pac"
$Proxy
NULL
$ProxyBypass
NULL
and this
curl::ie_get_proxy_for_url()
[1] "proxy-server:8080"
So I seem to have a good connection to the internet through RStudio but not when using Anaconda's software.
I have verified that I have a good internet connection using this:
httr::BROWSE("https://www.ibm.com")
It appears that libcurl is built without HTTPS-proxy support, apparently.
Any suggestions?

Answer 1

SOLVED!
1) Step 1: allow Anaconda to access the internet by adding proxy info with a new file named .condarc exactly as detailed in this answer. You can verify this works ok by typing conda update conda into the Anaconda Prompt app.
2) Step 2: allow R and RStudio to access the internet by adding these 2 lines into the .Renviron file (in my case this was found in C:\Users\USERNAME\Documents for Windows 10):
http_proxy=http://proxy-server:8080
https_proxy=http://proxy-server:8080
You can now run this to install Keras:
library(keras)
install_keras()