ggplot "error in rename" - r

Question

update I have posted my solution below, the culprit was my own rename function that overrode reshape::rename
I have been using the ggplot R package with little trouble until today. Today, I get an error using code that has previously worked, and when I debug it to the minimal working example, it still gives an error;
If I do this:
library(ggplot2)
d<- data.frame(x=1:3,y=1:3)
ggplot(data=d) + geom_line(aes(x,y))
The following error is returned:
Error in rename(x, .base_to_ggplot) :
unused argument(s) (.base_to_ggplot)
The traceback is:
6: rename(x, .base_to_ggplot)
5: rename_aes(aes)
4: aes()
3: structure(list(data = data, layers = list(), scales = Scales$new(),
mapping = mapping, options = list(), coordinates = CoordCartesian$new(),
facet = FacetGrid$new(), plot_env = environment), class = "ggplot")
2: ggplot.data.frame(data = d, aes = c(x, y))
1: ggplot(data = d, aes = c(x, y))
The error does not occur after removing all objects using rm(list=ls()), but it is still not clear to me what object is causing this error or why - how can I figure this out?
Does anyone know what may have gone wrong?

Answer 1

I'm not able to return the same error message that you've posted above. When running your code snippet, I'm getting the following error:
Error: geom_pointrange requires the following missing aesthetics: ymin, ymax
Accordingly, geom_pointrange() is expecting arguments for ymin and ymax. I'll leave it up to you to fill in your pertinent information for what should go into those parameters, but this code executes:
ggplot(data=d) + geom_pointrange(aes(x,y, ymin = y - .5, ymax = y + .5))

Answer 2

The problem is caused because ggplot2 doesn't use namespaces - this will be fixed in the next release.

Answer 3

The error was caused by one of the objects (thanks to pointers from #Chase).
Here is how I debugged and found the culprit. The important part was to use the try() function that keeps the for loop running despite errors
foo <- ls() #get a static list of all suspect objects
for(i in 1:length(foo)) {
print(foo[i])
rm(list=foo[i])
try(ggplot()+geom_point(aes(x=1:2,y=1:2)))
}
This resulted in the following output:
...
[1] "45 reg.model"
Error in rename(x, .base_to_ggplot) :
unused argument(s) (.base_to_ggplot)
[1] "46 reg.parms"
Error in rename(x, .base_to_ggplot) :
unused argument(s) (.base_to_ggplot)
[1] "47 rename"
[1] "48 samples"
...
aha! it was my own function rename that caused the error, since ggplot2 relies on reshape::rename.
Solution: rename the new rename function... how to prevent this in the future? Perhaps study up on the use of namespaces.