version 1.2.0 bug: "`method` must be a single string, not `NULL`"

[jjjermiah]

Can't seem to figure out whats going on here, but the latest version is behaving unexpectedly

error whenever I perform a request

Error in `create_response()`:
! `method` must be a single string, not `NULL`.

note: replaced my url with <api> for privacy

Version 1.1.2

> remotes::install_version("httr2", version = "1.1.2")
Trying https://cran.r-project.org
Downloading package from url: https://cran.r-project.org/src/contrib/Archive/httr2/httr2_1.1.2.tar.gz
Installing package into ‘/home/jermiahj/R/x86_64-pc-linux-gnu-library/4.3’
(as ‘lib’ is unspecified)
* installing *source* package ‘httr2’ ...
** package ‘httr2’ successfully unpacked and MD5 sums checked
** using staged installation
** R
** inst
** byte-compile and prepare package for lazy loading
** help
*** installing help indices
*** copying figures
** building package indices
** installing vignettes
** testing if installed package can be loaded from temporary location
** testing if installed package can be loaded from final location
** testing if installed package keeps a record of temporary installation path
* DONE (httr2)
> httr2::request(httr2::example_url()) |> httr2::req_url_path("/json") |> httr2::req_perform()
<httr2_response>
GET http://127.0.0.1:44011/json
Status: 200 OK
Content-Type: application/json
Body: In memory (407 bytes)
> httr2::request('http://<api>/models') |> httr2::req_perform()
<httr2_response>
GET http://<api>/models
Status: 200 OK
Content-Type: application/json
Body: In memory (7748 bytes)

updating to 1.2.0

> remotes::install_version("httr2", version = "1.2.0")
Downloading package from url: https://cran.r-project.org/src/contrib/httr2_1.2.0.tar.gz
Installing package into ‘/home/jermiahj/R/x86_64-pc-linux-gnu-library/4.3’
(as ‘lib’ is unspecified)
* installing *source* package ‘httr2’ ...
** package ‘httr2’ successfully unpacked and MD5 sums checked
** using staged installation
** R
** inst
** byte-compile and prepare package for lazy loading
** help
*** installing help indices
*** copying figures
** building package indices
** installing vignettes
** testing if installed package can be loaded from temporary location
** testing if installed package can be loaded from final location
** testing if installed package keeps a record of temporary installation path
* DONE (httr2)
> 
> packageVersion('httr2')
[1] ‘1.2.0’
> httr2::request(httr2::example_url()) |> httr2::req_url_path("/json") |> httr2::req_perform()
Error in `create_response()`:
! `method` must be a single string, not `NULL`.
Show Traceback
> httr2::request('http://<api>/models') |> httr2::req_perform()
Error in `create_response()`:
! `method` must be a single string, not `NULL`.
Show Traceback
>

traceback

Error in `create_response()`:
! `method` must be a single string, not `NULL`.
Hide Traceback
    ▆
 1. └─httr2::req_perform(...)
 2.   └─httr2:::req_perform1(req, path = path, handle = handle)
 3.     └─httr2:::create_response(req = req, curl_data = fetch$curl_data, body = fetch$body)
 4.       └─httr2::new_response(...)
 5.         └─httr2:::check_string(method, call = error_call)
 6.           └─httr2:::stop_input_type(...)
 7.             └─rlang::abort(message, ..., call = call, arg = arg)

[jjjermiah]

looks like its a curl issue as described in #737,
can confirm my version is:

curl --version
curl 7.68.0 (x86_64-pc-linux-gnu) 

the previous implementation had a default of GET, can we add back a default here?

[fdrennan]

Was here to mention I'm getting the same thing. req$curl_data$method="" fixed it inside of httr2, just prior to the create_response function.

[fdrennan]

Browse[2]> curl_fetch(handle, req$url, path)
...
$curl_data$status_code
[1] 200

$curl_data$type
[1] "application/json"

$curl_data$headers
  [1] 48 54 54 50 2f 31 2e 31 20 32 30 30 20 4f 4b 0d 0a 41 63 63 65 73 73 2d 43 6f 6e 74 72 6f 6c 2d
 [33] 41 6c 6c 6f 77 2d 4f 72 69 67 69 6e 3a 20 2a 0d 0a 43 6f 6e 74 65 6e 74 2d 54 79 70 65 3a 20 61
 [65] 70 70 6c 69 63 61 74 69 6f 6e 2f 6a 73 6f 6e 0d 0a 44 61 74 65 3a 20 54 75 65 2c 20 31 35 20 4a
 [97] 75 6c 20 32 30 32 35 20 32 30 3a 31 34 3a 33 38 20 47 4d 54 0d 0a 43 6f 6e 74 65 6e 74 2d 4c 65
[129] 6e 67 74 68 3a 20 38 34 0d 0a 0d 0a

$curl_data$modified
[1] NA

$curl_data$times
     redirect    namelookup       connect   pretransfer starttransfer         total 
     0.000000      0.000032      0.000033      0.000067      0.001186      0.001217 

$curl_data$scheme
[1] "HTTPS"

$curl_data$http_version
[1] 1

$curl_data$method
NULL

$curl_data$content
 [1] 7b 22 72 65 67 69 73 74 72 79 22 3a 22 2f 67 73 74 6f 72 65 2f 64 61 74 61 2f 67 6f 62 62 6c 65
[33] 72 2f 70 72 64 22 2c 22 73 74 61 67 69 6e 67 22 3a 22 2f 67 73 74 6f 72 65 2f 64 61 74 61 2f 67
[65] 6f 62 62 6c 65 72 2f 73 74 61 67 69 6e 67 2d 70 72 64 22 7d


$body
 [1] 7b 22 72 65 67 69 73 74 72 79 22 3a 22 2f 67 73 74 6f 72 65 2f 64 61 74 61 2f 67 6f 62 62 6c 65
[33] 72 2f 70 72 64 22 2c 22 73 74 61 67 69 6e 67 22 3a 22 2f 67 73 74 6f 72 65 2f 64 61 74 61 2f 67
[65] 6f 62 62 6c 65 72 2f 73 74 61 67 69 6e 67 2d 70 72 64 22 7d

[hadley]

This works fine for me:

library(httr2)
packageVersion("httr2")
#> [1] '1.2.0'
packageVersion("curl")
#> [1] '6.4.0'

request(example_url()) |> 
  req_url_path("/json") |> 
  req_perform()
#> <httr2_response>
#> GET http://127.0.0.1:57908/json
#> Status: 200 OK
#> Content-Type: application/json
#> Body: In memory (407 bytes)

^{Created on 2025-07-15 with reprex v2.1.1}

Can you please let me know if updating the curl package helps?

[hadley]

Or are you all using an old system curl? 7.68.0 was released in January 2020, which is >5 years old, and hence not supported. But we should be able to give a clearer error in that case.

[jjjermiah]

Or are you all using an old system curl? 7.68.0 was released in January 2020, which is >5 years old, and hence not supported. But we should be able to give a clearer error in that case.

thats correct, its the system curl. will report back after updating

[fdrennan]

Yes, alright - thanks for the suggestion.

curl 7.69.1 (x86_64-pc-linux-gnu) libcurl/7.69.1 OpenSSL/1.1.1g zlib/1.2.11 libidn2/2.3.0 nghttp2/1.41.0
Release-Date: 2020-03-11
Protocols: dict file ftp ftps gopher http https imap imaps ldap ldaps pop3 pop3s rtsp smb smbs smtp smtps telnet tftp 
Features: AsynchDNS HTTP2 HTTPS-proxy IDN IPv6 Largefile libz NTLM NTLM_WB SSL TLS-SRP UnixSockets

[fdrennan]

Installing the prior version of httr2 fixes it in the meantime

remotes::install_version("httr2", version = "1.1.2", repos = "http://cran.us.r-project.org/")

[jeroen]

What linux distribution do you use? How did you install the curl R package? Can you show us the output of your install.packages("curl") as well?

[fdrennan]

This is on HPC at Roche. We use easybuild -https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=38AuEQ7Jxn4 - and the installation is with an internal package manager. I think updating curl definitely explains it, and it seems there's at least opportunity for an improved error message or backwards compatibility of some sort, and I know curl needs an update here, so I can work with the guys here for that.

[jeroen]

OK I have never used easybuild but all curl versions on https://docs.easybuild.io/version-specific/supported-software/c/cURL/ should suffice.

it seems there's at least opportunity for an improved error message

I am interested which operating system you run, and your packageVersion("curl") and if you get any warnings or errors when install.packages("curl").

[davidrubinger]

I updated curl to 8.7.1 and same error as above:

rstudio@RnDDavid:~$ curl --version
curl 8.7.1 (x86_64-pc-linux-gnu) libcurl/8.7.1 OpenSSL/1.1.1f zlib/1.2.11 brotli/1.0.7 zstd/1.4.4 nghttp2/1.40.0
Release-Date: 2024-03-27
Protocols: dict file ftp ftps gopher gophers http https imap imaps ipfs ipns mqtt pop3 pop3s rtsp smb smbs smtp smtps telnet tftp
Features: alt-svc AsynchDNS brotli HSTS HTTP2 HTTPS-proxy IPv6 Largefile libz NTLM SSL threadsafe TLS-SRP UnixSockets zstd

library(httr2)
packageVersion("httr2")
#> [1] '1.2.0'
packageVersion("curl")
#> [1] '6.4.0'
request(example_url()) |> 
  req_url_path("/json") |> 
  req_perform()
#> Error in `create_response()`:
#> ! `method` must be a single string, not `NULL`.

Installed curl via:

wget https://curl.se/download/curl-8.7.1.tar.gz
tar -xzf curl-8.7.1.tar.gz

[jeroen]

Installed curl via:
wget https://curl.se/download/curl-8.7.1.tar.gz
tar -xzf curl-8.7.1.tar.gz

This just extracts sources, which does not tell us anything. I'm not sure what you did but you probably haven't linked the R package to your self-built libcurl correctly. To see the runtime libcurl version check curl::curl_version() .

If you build libraries from source (which I don't recommend) you probably need to set LD_LIBRARY_PATH, see this issue for more tips.