[formatOccs] Error in gsub(x, "", y, fixed = TRUE) : zero-length pattern

[Lobz]

I have no idea why this is happening, please help. This is the dataset I'm using: https://api.gbif.org/v1/occurrence/download/request/0061636-241126133413365.zip

Here's my code:

# read data from file
gbif_raw <- readData("../../BIOTA/GBIF/0061636-241126133413365.zip", quote = "", na.strings = c("", "NA"))
gbif_raw <- gbif_raw[[1]]

occs <- formatDwc(gbif_data = gbif_raw)
occs <- formatOcc(occs)

And here's the error I'm getting:

Error in gsub(x, "", y, fixed = TRUE) : zero-length pattern

[Lobz]

Determined the problem is actually here:

occs$recordedBy.new <- fixName(occs$recordedBy)
occs$recordedBy.aux <- prepName(occs$recordedBy.new,
                            fix.names = FALSE,
                            sep.out = "; ",
                            output = "aux")

[Lobz]

The error occurs in line 14 of lastName.R, when the input has a name starting with a comma. In my input I found the following:

> x[(grepl("^,",x))]
[1] ", J.P. Souza, V.R. Scalon, G.O. Romao, M.I.R.G. Oliveira, A.L.F. Dutra"

I thought the name might have been split incorrectly but actually the input really does start with a comma AFTER a ; separating the first author

> gbif_raw$recordedBy[grepl(found, x)]
[1] "Souza, V.C.; , J.P.Souza, V.R.Scalon, G.O.Romão, M.I.R.G.Oliveira, A.L.F.Dutra"

My suggestions are: add a safeguard (maybe a try) to skip errors, and remove any commas at the start of strings.