Download packages error on Julia 0.4.7

General Usage
1

Hello, I am working on setting up Julia on a new computer that is running Catalina.

A few versions of Julia are currently installed, but I’m having trouble setting up / downloading packages. I’ve never seen error like this before, on my older computers. I tried searching forums but I’m not coming up with anything. I could use some guidance.

Here are the errors on 0.4.7

_

**julia>** **Pkg.add("MAT")**

**INFO: Initializing package repository /Users/User/.julia/v0.4**

**INFO: Cloning METADATA from git://github.com/JuliaLang/METADATA.jl**

**ERROR: ArgumentError: '/Users/User/.julia/v0.4/METADATA' exists. 
`remove_destination=true` is required to remove '/Users/User/.julia/v0.4/METADATA' before moving.**

**in checkfor_mv_cp_cptree at file.jl:90**

**in init at pkg/dir.jl:62**

**in cd at pkg/dir.jl:28**

**in add at pkg.jl:23**
2

Went are you trying to use 0.4? That’s ancient (2014?). Specifically the current package manager was introduced in 0.7, so trying to add modern packages using this version will likely fail.

1 Like
3

It’s for legacy code.

4

I tested to install packages with 0.4.7 on Linux and it still works fine. Your error message looks kinda weird so my best guess is that your file system behaves in some way that the old Julia isn’t prepared for. You could try to install METADATA by cloning it outside of Julia but you would probably just run into similar problems with cloning the packages in the next step.

5

Yes, installing packages generally works fine on 0.4.7, as it did on the old computer. The issue here arose with a new computer. The new computer does have admin privileges revoked, due to new institutional policy, so I need to ask my IT department every time I need an admin login. The issue is that I am not sure exactly what needs to be done to elicit such proper login. With other installs, the process was more clear (such as installing xcode, for example).

6

There should be no need for admin privileges to install Julia.

One thought is that it is the git clone itself that fails. Does

Pkg.Git.run(`clone git://github.com/JuliaLang/METADATA.jl`)

work in Julia 0.4.7? Does

git clone git://github.com/JuliaLang/METADATA.jl

work outside of Julia?

7

Excellent! This helps, thank you! Now Pkg.status() works. Here’s the newest error

**julia>** **Pkg.add("MAT")**

fatal: Not a git repository (or any of the parent directories): .git

**ERROR: failed process: Process(setenv(`git rev-parse --git-dir`; 
dir="/Users/User/.julia/v0.4/METADATA"), ProcessExited(128)) [128]**

**in pipeline_error at process.jl:555**

**in readbytes at process.jl:515**

**in readall at process.jl:520**

**in dir at pkg/git.jl:12**

**in git at pkg/git.jl:18**

**in add at pkg/entry.jl:53**

**in add at pkg/entry.jl:73**

**in anonymous at pkg/dir.jl:31**

**in cd at file.jl:22**

**in cd at pkg/dir.jl:31**

**in add at pkg.jl:23**