How to replicate the package check time performed on CRAN?

Question

I've been trying to reduce the check time on a package I am submitting to CRAN. On my local machines, check time is somewhere between a minute (i7 CPU) and 2 minutes (i5 CPU). However, CRAN reviewers keep pointing out the check time is over 10 minutes. The only way I could find to reproduce such long check times is by uploading my package to http://win-builder.r-project.org/, where it indeed takes > 600 s to check.

I wish I could reproduce this check time locally so I am not dependent on a remote solution. The only difference I can see between Win builder and my local machine is the OS (Win vs. Linux) and how Win builder seems to be doing multiarch checks (i386 and x64).

I am not sure how to reproduce this locally. I have tried R CMD check with seemingly-relevant switches like --multiarch and --force-multiarch but it doesn't seem to be doing anything differently. I guess I have to install some extra packages like r-cran-i386 or whatever, but I couldn't find anything of the sort in my repositories ("R" can be such a PITA of a search expression) and the instructions on README files like the one on https://cran.r-project.org/bin/linux/ubuntu/ didn't get me far enough.

I am already using --as-cran, and am aware of solutions like this, though I think installing R i386 on a separate VM containing a 32-bit OS defeats the purpose of what I am trying to accomplish.

Rebellion

Is your package on github? Can you provide a link? – Darky

@Darky Sure thing, the release candidates are being commited to github.com/ocbe-uio/DIscBIO/tree/release-1.0. The latest Win check results are on win-builder.r-project.org/mxCRp6eh5khJ (valid for "roughly 72 hours") – Rebellion

Running the Rcmd.exe check --as-cran DIscBIO_1.0.0.tar.gz on my Win10 system took about three to four minutes. But I had to install your dependencies first and that took quite long (your dependency tree is large and I think enrichR took particularly long). I even get a note "Imports includes 22 non-default packages. Importing from so many packages makes the package vulnerable to any of them becoming unavailable. Move as many as possible to Suggests and use conditionally." – Darky

Thank you for your help, @Roland. I am aware of that note and managed to get the number of dependencies down to 22 from 28, but I am afraid there's little code left to cut without dropping major features. FWIW, enrichR was one of the dropped packages, I apologize for not updating the README file. I did just notice that the Travis builds are almost 2x faster than they used to be, so maybe I should try a new submission and hope this translates into a passable check time for the reviewers. – Rebellion

Thanks to @Roland, I just realized I forgot to remove enrichR (and a couple other packages) from the list of suggested packages in the DESCRIPTION. This saved a few seconds on the Win builder check time, though I am still over the 600-second mark. – Rebellion