CRAN policies require that "Packages which use Internet resources should fail gracefully with an informative message if the resource is not available or has changed (and not give a check warning nor error)." This solution is adapted from kvasilopoulos' response at https://forum.posit.co/t/internet-resources-should-fail-gracefully/49199/11. This function is not exported.
fail_gracefully(remote_file, maxtime = 10)Remote file to be downloaded.
Maximum time to check connection before timing out.