RStudio - LD_PREOAD Issue - r

Question

I get a RDOBC error in RStudio that does not occur when I use R on the server itself.
R -
R version 3.1.2 (2014-10-31) -- "Pumpkin Helmet"
Copyright (C) 2014 The R Foundation for Statistical Computing
Platform: x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu (64-bit)
library(RODBC)
conn = odbcConnect("Cloudera_HIVE64", uid="manishm", pwd="tdpass")
data = sqlQuery(conn,"SELECT * from default.test")
data
[1] test.id test.name
<0 rows> (or 0-length row.names)
RStudio -
R version 3.1.2 (2014-10-31) -- "Pumpkin Helmet"
Copyright (C) 2014 The R Foundation for Statistical Computing
Platform: x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu (64-bit)
library(RODBC)
conn = odbcConnect("ClouderaHIVE64", uid="manishm", pwd="tdpass")
Warning messages:
1: In odbcDriverConnect("DSN=ClouderaHIVE64;UID=manishm;PWD=tdpass") :
[RODBC] ERROR: state HY000, code 11560, message [unixODBC][Cloudera]ODBC Unable to locate SQLGetPrivateProfileString function.
2: In odbcDriverConnect("DSN=Cloudera_HIVE64;UID=manishm;PWD=tdpass") :
ODBC connection failed
I have checked the environment variables and have ensured that the below are correct for all users
ODBCINI=/opt/cloudera/hiveodbc/Setup/odbcinst.ini
LD_PRELOAD=/usr/lib64/libodbcinst.so
Any idea why this will work in R and not in RStudio with the same environment settings?

Answer 1

I once had a similar problem on ubuntu 12.04 that I could solve, but it was kind of hacky. For reasons I don't understand, it seems that environment variables are sometimes not passed to applications that are started by clicking on the launcher. The problem that I had concerned another package, but the symptoms were similar: a properly defined environment variable seemed to be unknown to RStudio.
From this experience, I suggest the following:
Open a linux shell and change directory to cd /usr/share/applications
Type sudo cp rstudio.desktop rstudio.desktop.bak to create a backup copy of this file which we will modify.
Edit rstudio.desktop as sudo with your favorite text editor, like sudo gedit rstudio.desktop
The second line after [Desktop Entry] probably contains something like Exec=/usr/lib/rstudio/bin/rstudio %F. Change this line so that the required environment variables are explicitly passed, e.g., Exec=sh -c 'env LD_PRELOAD=/usr/lib64/libodbcinst.so /usr/lib/rstudio/bin/rstudio %F'
Close RStudio and try to start again; possibly after rebooting.
If you experience any problem launching RStudio after these modifications, restore the previous version of the file rstudio.desktop with cd /usr/share/applications followed by cp -f rstudio.desktop.bak rstudio.desktop. This should restore the initial state. It means that your problem wasn't soved, but at least no harm should be done.
Hope this helps. Wishing you good luck...