ggsave doesn't save the plot, though it displays fine - also crashes plot viewer.

[markbneal]

The plot viewer crash occurs on my computer in Rstudio, in the Rgui, and on Rstudio cloud, due to some interaction with geom_xspline() when ggsave() is called- the plot is not saved, even though it displays fine.

See cloud project here (https://rstudio.cloud/project/1219353).

#ggsave of ggplot crashes viewer

# install.packages("tidyverse")
# install.packages("ggalt")
# library("devtools")
# install_github("hrbrmstr/ggalt",ref="v0.1.1")
library(tidyverse)
library(ggalt)

plot(cars)

#This Works
p <- ggplot(mtcars, aes(x=hp, y=mpg, group = cyl, colour=cyl))+
  geom_point(size=1)+
  theme(legend.position = "none")
p
ggsave("my plot 1.png", plot = p)
# ggsave("my plot 1.pdf", plot = p)
# ggsave("my plot 1.jpeg", plot = p)
# ggsave("my plot 1.svg", plot = p)

#This crashes
p <- ggplot(mtcars, aes(x=hp, y=mpg, group = cyl, colour=cyl))+
  geom_point(size=1)+
  theme(legend.position = "none") +
  geom_xspline(spline_shape = -0.5, size=0.5, linetype=2) #adding this line causes ggsave not to work, and crashes plot viewer
p
ggsave("my plot 2.png", plot = p)
# ggsave("my plot 2.pdf", plot = p)
# ggsave("my plot 2.jpeg", plot = p)
# ggsave("my plot 2.svg", plot = p)

sessionInfo()

[thomasp85]

Since this seems to be an issue with a ggalt extension I'd suggest you open the issue there. If it turns out that this is indeed an issue from ggplot2 you are welcome to reopen

[markbneal]

I have raised at ggalt (hrbrmstr/ggalt#70)
It still isn't clear to me which is problematic - possibly both?

I've done some additional testing with the code from geom_xspline() help file to identify:

1. Exactly which options in geom_xspline() are causing issues with ggsave() -> linetype=2 and spline_shape = -0.5 are problems, a simple geom_xspline(size=0.5) works with ggsave()

2. Alternative save plot methods and whether they work -> cowplot save doesn't. base png() and pdf() work, even with options that are problematic for ggsave - so does that imply there is an issue for ggsave?

#from help for geom_xspline ############################################################
library(ggalt)
library(cowplot)

set.seed(1492)
dat <- data.frame(x=c(1:10, 1:10, 1:10),
                  y=c(sample(15:30, 10), 2*sample(15:30, 10),
                      3*sample(15:30, 10)),
                  group=factor(c(rep(1, 10), rep(2, 10), rep(3, 10)))
)

ggplot(dat, aes(x, y, group=group, color=group)) +
  geom_point() +
  geom_line()

#works
ggplot(dat, aes(x, y, group=group, color=factor(group))) +
  geom_point() +
  geom_line() +
  geom_smooth(se=FALSE, linetype="dashed", size=0.5)

ggsave("my plot 5.png")

#doesn't ggsave, depending on geom_xspline parameters
p1 <- ggplot(dat, aes(x, y, group=group, color=factor(group))) +
  geom_point(color="black") +
  geom_smooth(se=FALSE, linetype="dashed", size=0.5) +
#  geom_xspline(size=0.5)                         #will save with ggsave - this is the version in help
#  geom_xspline(linetype=2)                       #crashes with ggsave
geom_xspline(spline_shape = -0.5)                 #crashes with ggsave
p1

#ggsave("my plot 6.png")

#save_plot("p1.png", p1) #using cowplot save, also doesn't work


#works
#http://www.sthda.com/english/wiki/creating-and-saving-graphs-r-base-graphs
pdf("my plot 9.pdf") 
# 2. Create a plot
p1            
# Close the pdf file
dev.off() 

#works
png("my plot 10.png")
p1
dev.off() 

[thomasp85]

This is a ggalt problem, ggsave isn’t only a wrapper around opening and closing a graphic device

[trantor27]

I have the same problem with ggsave() using ggpattern::geom_rect_pattern() in the plot