Error when creating simple graphs in WSL Ubuntu 22.04

[nereavl]

I am constantly encountering an error while trying to make very simple graphs on WSL Ubuntu 22.04.

library(ggplot2)
data <- data.frame(name=c("A","B","C","D","E") , value=c(3,12,5,18,45))
ggplot(data, aes(x=name, y=value)) +
geom_bar(stat = "identity")
Error in ggplot(data, aes(x = name, y = value)) + geom_bar(stat = "identity") :
non-numeric argument to binary operator
In addition: Warning message:
Incompatible methods ("Ops.S7_object", "+.gg") for "+"

I am running R 4.5.2 and ggplot2 4.0.1

Thanks!

[teunbrand]

Thanks for the report! I cannot reproduce this locally on my machine, so if anybody has a machine where this also occurs, that'd be good information to have.

[teunbrand]

I've now tested this on WSL Ubuntu 22.04 as well and don't run into this error. I'm going to close this and we can re-open if there are better steps to reproduce the issue.

[VicentRoig]

I am encountering the same problem in my session. ggplot2 works on session 3.5.2. When I update it to 4.0.1, it gets the same error as the one said. I'm running it on Windows, can I provide you with any more information?

[teunbrand]

Yes, if you could let us know:

• If you're running this on plain Windows or WSL
• Version of R installation
• Version of S7 package

That'd be helpful

[VicentRoig]

My computer is native Windows 11.

R version 4.2.1 (2022-06-23 ucrt)

S7 is version 0.2.1

[VicentRoig]

I didn't have R updated, so I couldn't update GGally and it didn't work because of that. Thank you very much nonetheless.

[Frank-plant]

I also have the same problem. The error is that Error in ggplot(CqSWEET_exp_filter_mean_tissue, aes(gene_id, expression, :
non-numeric argument to binary operator
In addition: Warning message:
Incompatible methods ("Ops.S7_object", "+.gg") for "+" .

My system information.
sessionInfo()
R version 4.5.2 (2025-10-31)
Platform: x86_64-pc-linux-gnu
Running under: Ubuntu 20.04.6 LTS

Matrix products: default
BLAS: /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/openblas-pthread/libblas.so.3
LAPACK: /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/openblas-pthread/liblapack.so.3; LAPACK version 3.9.0

locale:
[1] LC_CTYPE=en_US.UTF-8 LC_NUMERIC=C LC_TIME=en_US.UTF-8 LC_COLLATE=en_US.UTF-8
[5] LC_MONETARY=en_US.UTF-8 LC_MESSAGES=en_US.UTF-8 LC_PAPER=en_US.UTF-8 LC_NAME=C
[9] LC_ADDRESS=C LC_TELEPHONE=C LC_MEASUREMENT=en_US.UTF-8 LC_IDENTIFICATION=C

time zone: Asia/Shanghai
tzcode source: system (glibc)

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

other attached packages:
[1] ggpubr_0.6.2 ggsci_4.1.0 lubridate_1.9.4 forcats_1.0.1 stringr_1.6.0 dplyr_1.1.4 purrr_1.2.0
[8] readr_2.1.6 tidyr_1.3.1 tibble_3.3.0 ggplot2_4.0.1 tidyverse_2.0.0

loaded via a namespace (and not attached):
[1] gtable_0.3.6 compiler_4.5.2 ggsignif_0.6.4 tidyselect_1.2.1 dichromat_2.0-0.1
[6] scales_1.4.0 R6_2.6.1 generics_0.1.4 Formula_1.2-5 backports_1.5.0
[11] car_3.1-3 pillar_1.11.1 RColorBrewer_1.1-3 tzdb_0.5.0 rlang_1.1.6
[16] utf8_1.2.6 broom_1.0.11 stringi_1.8.7 S7_0.2.1 timechange_0.3.0
[21] cli_3.6.5 withr_3.0.2 magrittr_2.0.4 grid_4.5.2 rstudioapi_0.17.1
[26] hms_1.1.4 lifecycle_1.0.4 vctrs_0.6.5 pheatmap_1.0.13 rstatix_0.7.3
[31] glue_1.8.0 farver_2.1.2 abind_1.4-8 carData_3.0-5 tools_4.5.2
[36] pkgconfig_2.0.3

Could you give some advice to fix it?
Thanks

[teunbrand]

@Frank-plant, do you have a minimal example that triggers the error?

[Frank-plant]

@Frank-plant, do you have a minimal example that triggers the error?

OK. I ran examples from ggplot2 and show that error.

First example：

Examples for 'ggplot2::geom_bar'
Bar charts
Aliases: [geom_bar](http://xiyoucloud.pro:17257/help/library/ggplot2/help/geom_bar) [geom_col](http://xiyoucloud.pro:17257/help/library/ggplot2/help/geom_col) [stat_count](http://xiyoucloud.pro:17257/help/library/ggplot2/help/stat_count)
```

Keywords:

### ** Examples

# geom_bar is designed to make it easy to create bar charts that show
# counts (or sums of weights)
g <- ggplot(mpg, aes(class))
# Number of cars in each class:
g + geom_bar()
Warning: Incompatible methods ("Ops.S7_object", "+.gg") for "+"
Error in g + geom_bar(): non-numeric argument to binary operator
# Total engine displacement of each class
g + geom_bar(aes(weight = displ))
Warning: Incompatible methods ("Ops.S7_object", "+.gg") for "+"
Error in g + geom_bar(aes(weight = displ)): non-numeric argument to binary operator
`

Second example：
`Examples for 'ggplot2::geom_point'
Points
Aliases: [geom_point](http://xiyoucloud.pro:17257/help/library/ggplot2/help/geom_point)

Keywords:

### ** Examples

p <- ggplot(mtcars, aes(wt, mpg))
p + geom_point()
Warning: Incompatible methods ("Ops.S7_object", "+.gg") for "+"
Error in p + geom_point(): non-numeric argument to binary operator
# Add aesthetic mappings
p + geom_point(aes(colour = factor(cyl)))
Warning: Incompatible methods ("Ops.S7_object", "+.gg") for "+"
Error in p + geom_point(aes(colour = factor(cyl))): non-numeric argument to binary operator`

[sskagseth]

I am having the same problem.

Restarting R session...

sessionInfo()
R version 4.4.2 (2024-10-31)
Platform: x86_64-redhat-linux-gnu
Running under: Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9.7 (Plow)

Matrix products: default
BLAS/LAPACK: FlexiBLAS OPENBLAS-OPENMP; LAPACK version 3.9.0

locale:
[1] LC_CTYPE=en_US.UTF-8 LC_NUMERIC=C LC_TIME=en_US.UTF-8
[4] LC_COLLATE=en_US.UTF-8 LC_MONETARY=en_US.UTF-8 LC_MESSAGES=en_US.UTF-8
[7] LC_PAPER=en_US.UTF-8 LC_NAME=C LC_ADDRESS=C
[10] LC_TELEPHONE=C LC_MEASUREMENT=en_US.UTF-8 LC_IDENTIFICATION=C

time zone: Europe/Oslo
tzcode source: system (glibc)

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

loaded via a namespace (and not attached):
[1] compiler_4.4.2 tools_4.4.2 rstudioapi_0.18.0 yaml_2.3.12 renv_1.1.1

packageVersion("ggplot2")
[1] ‘4.0.3’
packageVersion("S7")
[1] ‘0.2.2’
loadedNamespaces()
[1] "compiler" "graphics" "tools" "rstudioapi" "utils" "grDevices" "yaml"
[8] "stats" "datasets" "methods" "renv" "base"

minimal failing example

library(ggplot2)
loadedNamespaces()
[1] "methods" "RColorBrewer" "R6" "tidyselect" "farver" "magrittr"
[7] "gtable" "glue" "tibble" "pkgconfig" "generics" "dplyr"
[13] "lifecycle" "ggplot2" "utils" "cli" "S7" "scales"
[19] "grid" "vctrs" "graphics" "withr" "renv" "grDevices"
[25] "stats" "compiler" "base" "rstudioapi" "tools" "pillar"
[31] "yaml" "rlang" "datasets"
ggplot(mtcars, aes(x = wt, y = mpg)) + geom_point()
Error in ggplot(mtcars, aes(x = wt, y = mpg)) + geom_point() :
non-numeric argument to binary operator
In addition: Warning message:
Incompatible methods ("Ops.S7_object", "+.gg") for "+"

[teunbrand]

Just a reprex that I can't reproduce the issue on my WSL.
If this remains an issue for people, I'm happy to open up the issue, but I don't have the necessary tools to debug the issue.

library(ggplot2)
sessionInfo()
#> R version 4.5.2 (2025-10-31)
#> Platform: x86_64-pc-linux-gnu
#> Running under: Ubuntu 24.04.1 LTS
#>
#> Matrix products: default
#> BLAS:   /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/openblas-pthread/libblas.so.3
#> LAPACK: /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/openblas-pthread/libopenblasp-r0.3.26.so;  LAPACK version 3.12.0
#>
#> locale:
#>  [1] LC_CTYPE=C.UTF-8       LC_NUMERIC=C           LC_TIME=C.UTF-8
#>  [4] LC_COLLATE=C.UTF-8     LC_MONETARY=C.UTF-8    LC_MESSAGES=C.UTF-8
#>  [7] LC_PAPER=C.UTF-8       LC_NAME=C              LC_ADDRESS=C
#> [10] LC_TELEPHONE=C         LC_MEASUREMENT=C.UTF-8 LC_IDENTIFICATION=C
#>
#> time zone: Europe/Amsterdam
#> tzcode source: system (glibc)
#>
#> attached base packages:
#> [1] stats     graphics  grDevices utils     datasets  methods   base
#>
#> other attached packages:
#> [1] ggplot2_4.0.3
#>
#> loaded via a namespace (and not attached):
#>  [1] digest_0.6.39      RColorBrewer_1.1-3 R6_2.6.1           fastmap_1.2.0
#>  [5] xfun_0.57          farver_2.1.2       gtable_0.3.6       glue_1.8.0
#>  [9] knitr_1.51         htmltools_0.5.9    rmarkdown_2.31     lifecycle_1.0.4
#> [13] cli_3.6.5          S7_0.2.1           scales_1.4.0       vctrs_0.6.5
#> [17] grid_4.5.2         reprex_2.1.1       withr_3.0.2        compiler_4.5.2
#> [21] tools_4.5.2        evaluate_1.0.5     yaml_2.3.12        rlang_1.1.6
#> [25] fs_2.1.0
g <- ggplot(mpg, aes(class))
g + geom_bar()

g + geom_bar(aes(weight = displ))

^{Created on 2026-05-05 with reprex v2.1.1}

[sskagseth]

Hi,

Fully purging ggplot2 and S7 from my renv cache and doing a clean reinstall of ggplot2 did the trick. I though i did that before commenting yesterday, but maybe not.