How to Install Rjava for Use with 64Bit R on a 64 Bit Windows Computer

How can I install rJava for use with 64bit R on a 64 bit Windows computer?

The error is telling you that there is no entry in your Registry that tells R where Java is located on your machine. Either your registry is corrupt, but more likely you haven't installed Java. You can install either the Java Runtime Environment or the Java Development Kit.

(You can download Java here.)

If you installed Java, try reinstalling it. This should put the entries back in your Registry.

If that doesn't work, you can start looking at exactly where R is looking for your Registry entries. The function that rJava uses to find Java is in the rJava:::.onLoad function. Within that function there is a subfunction called find.java. I copy the contents here:

    find.java <- function() {
        for (root in c("HLM", "HCU")) for (key in c("Software\\JavaSoft\\Java Runtime Environment", 
            "Software\\JavaSoft\\Java Development Kit")) {
            hive <- try(utils::readRegistry(key, root, 2), 
              silent = TRUE)
            if (!inherits(hive, "try-error")) 
              return(hive)
        }
        hive
    }

Copy and paste this into your R window, and then run it find.java(). rJava is looking for an entry for JavaHome. If that isn't listed, then it is missing from your registry.

You could also manually set the directory of your Java location by setting it before loading the library:

Sys.setenv(JAVA_HOME='C:\\Your\\Java\\Directory')
library(rJava)

Using the rJava package on Win7 64 bit with R

Update (July 2018):

The latest CRAN version of rJava will find the jvm.dll automatically, without manually setting the PATH or JAVA_HOME. However note that:

• To use rJava in 32-bit R, you need Java for Windows x86
• To use rJava in 64-bit R, you need Java for Windows x64
• To build or check R packages with multi-arch (the default) you need to install both Java For Windows x64 as well as Java for Windows x86. On Win 64, the former installs in C:\Program files\Java\ and the latter in C:\Program Files (x86)\Java\ so they do not conflict.

As of Java version 9, support for x86 (win32) has been discontinued. Hence the latest working multi-arch setup is to install both jdk-8u172-windows-i586.exe and jdk-8u172-windows-x64.exe and then the binary package from CRAN:

install.packages("rJava")

The binary package from CRAN should pick up on the jvm by itself. Experts only: to build rJava from source, you need the --merge-multiarch flag:

install.packages('rJava', type = 'source', INSTALL_opts='--merge-multiarch')

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Old anwser:

(Note: many of folks in other answers/comments have said to remove JAVA_HOME, so consider that. I have not revisited this issue recently to know if all the steps below are still necessary.)

Here is some quick advice on how to get up and running with R + rJava on Windows 7 64bit. There are several possibilities, but most have fatal flaws. Here is what worked for me:

Add jvm.dll to your PATH

rJava, the R<->Java bridge, will need jvm.dll, but R will have trouble finding that DLL. It resides in a folder like

C:\Program Files\Java\jdk1.6.0_25\jre\bin\server

or

C:\Program Files\Java\jre6\jre\bin\client

Wherever yours is, add that directory to your windows PATH variable. (Windows -> "Path" -> "Edit environment variables to for your account" -> PATH -> edit the value.)

You may already have Java on your PATH. If so you should find the client/server directory in the same Java "home" dir as the one already on your PATH.

To be safe, make sure your architectures match.If you have Java in Program Files, it is 64-bit, so you ought to run R64. If you have Java in Program Files (x86), that's 32-bit, so you use plain 32-bit R.

Re-launch R from the Windows Menu

If R is running, quit.

From the Start Menu , Start R / RGUI, RStudio. This is very important, to make R pick up your PATH changes.

Install rJava 0.9.2.

Earlier versions do not work! Mirrors are not up-to-date, so go to the source at www.rforge.net: http://www.rforge.net/rJava/files/. Note the advice there

“Please use

`install.packages('rJava',,'http://www.rforge.net/')`

to install.”

That is almost correct. This actually works:

install.packages('rJava', .libPaths()[1], 'http://www.rforge.net/')

Watch the punctuation! The mysterious “.libPaths()[1],” just tells R to install the package in the primary library directory. For some reason, leaving the value blank doesn’t work, even though it should default.

Installation of rJava

You don't seem to have JDK installed. You will need at least

sudo apt-get install openjdk-7-jdk

then re-run

sudo R CMD javareconf

Make sure you do NOT set JAVA_HOME by hand - it will be detected automatically. You should then see something like this:

$ sudo R CMD javareconf
Java interpreter : /usr/bin/java
Java version     : 1.7.0_91
Java home path   : /usr/lib/jvm/java-7-openjdk-amd64/jre
Java compiler    : /usr/bin/javac
Java headers gen.: /usr/bin/javah
Java archive tool: /usr/bin/jar

trying to compile and link a JNI program 
detected JNI cpp flags    : -I$(JAVA_HOME)/../include
detected JNI linker flags : -L$(JAVA_HOME)/lib/amd64/server -ljvm
gcc -std=gnu99 -I/usr/share/R/include -DNDEBUG -I/usr/lib/jvm/java-7-openjdk-amd64/jre/../include     -fpic  -g -O2 -fstack-protector --param=ssp-buffer-size=4 -Wformat -Werror=format-security -D_FORTIFY_SOURCE=2 -g  -c conftest.c -o conftest.o
gcc -std=gnu99 -shared -L/usr/lib/R/lib -Wl,-Bsymbolic-functions -Wl,-z,relro -o conftest.so conftest.o -L/usr/lib/jvm/java-7-openjdk-amd64/jre/lib/amd64/server -ljvm -L/usr/lib/R/lib -lR

JAVA_HOME        : /usr/lib/jvm/java-7-openjdk-amd64/jre
Java library path: $(JAVA_HOME)/lib/amd64/server
JNI cpp flags    : -I$(JAVA_HOME)/../include
JNI linker flags : -L$(JAVA_HOME)/lib/amd64/server -ljvm

R: rJava package install failing

Turns out my problem was an issue with my JAVA_HOME environment variable. Yes, shocking I know. My initial setting for PATH and JAVA_HOME looked like this:

export JAVA_HOME=/usr/lib/jvm/java-6-sun
export PATH=$PATH:$JAVA_HOME/bin

And I added /jre so it now looks like this:

export JAVA_HOME=/usr/lib/jvm/java-6-sun/jre
export PATH=$PATH:$JAVA_HOME/bin

Everything in Java seemed to work fine without the /jre but rJava would not. Odd.

Problem loading rJava

I finally solved the problem:

It seems that rJava searches for jvm.dll in ~\Java\jre6\bin\client.
However this folder didn´t exist on my system (jvm.dll was in ~\bin\server).

So I just made a copy of jvm.dll in a folder ~\bin\client\ and added this to the path.

Now everything works fine!

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