RStudio suddenly stopped showing plots in the plot pane

Question

RStudio is not showing the generated plots in the plot pane anymore. Instead they open in a separate file with the name "Quartz". Here's my session info.:

> sessionInfo()
R version 3.3.1 (2016-06-21)
Platform: x86_64-apple-darwin13.4.0 (64-bit)
Running under: OS X 10.9.5 (Mavericks)

locale:
[1] en_CA.UTF-8/en_CA.UTF-8/en_CA.UTF-8/C/en_CA.UTF-8/en_CA.UTF-8

attached base packages:
[1] stats     graphics  grDevices utils     datasets  methods   base     

other attached packages:
[1] cluster_2.0.4 tm_0.6-2      NLP_0.1-9     ggplot2_2.1.0

loaded via a namespace (and not attached):
 [1] colorspace_1.2-6 scales_0.4.0     plyr_1.8.4       parallel_3.3.1   tools_3.3.1      gtable_0.2.0     Rcpp_0.12.5      slam_0.1-35     
 [9] grid_3.3.1       munsell_0.4.3

I tried tools > global options > panes > plots is selected.

I don't know what other info to share. I can see the plot pane with "plots" tab active. But it's blank.

Screen:

Notice the new menu with "Quartz" appear. Not sure what this is, but it comes up when R generates the plot and the usual RStudio menu disappears.

How do I get RStudio to display plots in the plots pane?

You might try re-installing / updating rstudio, but it's unclear this will fix it. As a first step. quit (`command + q`) rstudio and restart it to see if that helps. — lmo, Jun 28 '16 at 12:29
HI, I did re-instal and this seems to have corrected the problem. Leaving the question open in case anyone else knows why rstudio did this and how to fix — Doug Fir, Jun 29 '16 at 01:20

score 51 · Answer 1 · edited Oct 09 '20 at 19:17

51

Try running this:

dev.off()

Check if it works:

plot(rnorm(50), rnorm(50))

edited Oct 09 '20 at 19:17

M--

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answered Jun 28 '16 at 06:57

mkearney

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16

HI, "Error in dev.off() : cannot shut down device 1 (the null device)" – Doug Fir Jun 28 '16 at 07:33
3

Would be nice if someone explains what `dev.off()` does and in which situations it actually helps. I had to call `dev.off()` several times to get R Studio showing plots again. – normanius Nov 28 '21 at 19:31
Sometimes you want to send files to different places in R (usually saving figures to local files!). dev.off() tells R you are done dumping data to that file location. – RegressForward May 04 '22 at 15:25

score 20 · Answer 2 · edited Oct 09 '20 at 19:10

20

I am working with Rmarkdown, and in my case I solved this problem like this:

Go to Tools->Global Options->Rmarkdown
In "Show output preview in" select "Viewer Pane"
Uncheck the box "Show output inline for all R Markdown documents"

edited Oct 09 '20 at 19:10

M--

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answered Sep 28 '17 at 09:40

Juan

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5

For me none of above solutions worked. – Lazarus Thurston Mar 06 '22 at 18:16

score 10 · Answer 3 · edited Oct 09 '20 at 19:10

10

Follow below procedure to resolve the issue.

dev.off()
print(plot(1)) # Basically use print command once

now use plot command as you normally use and should work fine.

edited Oct 09 '20 at 19:10

M--

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answered Dec 09 '18 at 17:56

Tokci

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score 8 · Answer 4 · edited Oct 09 '20 at 19:11

8

For me, it worked when I first closed all the devices @udit-gupta. Recursively closing all the devices after finding the devices.

dev.cur()
dev.off(i) #where i = index of device to be switched off

get the device back with

getOption("device")

or

dev.set(which = dev.next())

edited Oct 09 '20 at 19:11

M--

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answered Apr 02 '18 at 01:12

Kiran K Telukunta

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score 4 · Answer 5 · edited Oct 09 '20 at 19:16

I was able to visualize plots in the plot pane for a while before it vanished. All the attempts with the suggestions above failed. What is referred in the blog below got it working.

https://datasciencelearner.wordpress.com/2014/08/17/my-plot-is-not-showing-up/

The trick is to wrap the graphics command inside print function, for instance:

print(
    plt2 <- ggplot(housing,
               aes(x = Home.Value)) +
                  geom_histogram()
)

score 3 · Answer 6 · edited Oct 09 '20 at 19:15

3

I had the same problem after updating R to version 3.3.2 and using RStudio 0.98.0. Installing the latest version of RStudio fixed the problem.

edited Oct 09 '20 at 19:15

M--

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answered Nov 12 '16 at 02:35

mwithiiri

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Can you add which versions you updated to make the answer future proof? – mpaskov Nov 12 '16 at 02:55

score 2 · Answer 7 · answered Jan 06 '22 at 08:20

2

I had the same problem and none of the above solutions fixed the issue. I completely uninstalled the Rstudio and installed it again and only after that the Rstudio started to show my plots in the plot pane again.

answered Jan 06 '22 at 08:20

Amin Shn

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As it’s currently written, your answer is unclear. Please [edit] to add additional details that will help others understand how this addresses the question asked. You can find more information on how to write good answers [in the help center](/help/how-to-answer). – Community Jan 06 '22 at 10:51

score 0 · Answer 8 · edited Oct 09 '20 at 19:12

0

It could be because graphic device are already on .

To find indices of open devices:

dev.cur()

To close devices:

dev.off(i)

where i is index of device to be switched off.

edited Oct 09 '20 at 19:12

M--

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answered Jul 24 '17 at 17:44

UDIT GUPTA

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score 0 · Answer 9 · answered Sep 19 '22 at 18:18

0

enter dev.off() command and Enter, it will fix the problem.

answered Sep 19 '22 at 18:18

Manthan Nanaware

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score -1 · Answer 10 · edited Dec 18 '20 at 06:46

-1

Go to "view" on the menu bar.
Select "panes".
Mark "all panes".

edited Dec 18 '20 at 06:46

double-beep

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answered Dec 18 '20 at 03:41

ayuba ahmed bayugo

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RStudio suddenly stopped showing plots in the plot pane

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