diff --git a/R/pkg/DESCRIPTION b/R/pkg/DESCRIPTION
index 95d3e52bef3a..c8cb1c3a992a 100644
--- a/R/pkg/DESCRIPTION
+++ b/R/pkg/DESCRIPTION
@@ -62,3 +62,4 @@ Collate:
 RoxygenNote: 5.0.1
 VignetteBuilder: knitr
 NeedsCompilation: no
+Encoding: UTF-8
diff --git a/R/pkg/R/sparkR.R b/R/pkg/R/sparkR.R
index cdb59093781f..3f23779da7b2 100644
--- a/R/pkg/R/sparkR.R
+++ b/R/pkg/R/sparkR.R
@@ -15,6 +15,10 @@
 # limitations under the License.
 #
 
+#
+# REMOVEME
+#
+
 .sparkREnv <- new.env()
 
 # Utility function that returns TRUE if we have an active connection to the
diff --git a/R/run-tests.sh b/R/run-tests.sh
index 782b5f5baeba..03727fd8fd6a 100755
--- a/R/run-tests.sh
+++ b/R/run-tests.sh
@@ -32,8 +32,8 @@ NUM_TEST_WARNING="$(grep -c -e 'Warnings ----------------' $LOGFILE)"
 CRAN_CHECK_LOG_FILE=$FWDIR/cran-check.out
 rm -f $CRAN_CHECK_LOG_FILE
 # TODO(SPARK-30737) reenable this once packages are correctly installed in Jenkins
-# NO_TESTS=1 NO_MANUAL=1 $FWDIR/check-cran.sh 2>&1 | tee -a $CRAN_CHECK_LOG_FILE
-# FAILED=$((PIPESTATUS[0]||$FAILED))
+NO_TESTS=1 NO_MANUAL=1 $FWDIR/check-cran.sh 2>&1 | tee -a $CRAN_CHECK_LOG_FILE
+FAILED=$((PIPESTATUS[0]||$FAILED))
 touch $CRAN_CHECK_LOG_FILE
 
 NUM_CRAN_WARNING="$(grep -c WARNING$ $CRAN_CHECK_LOG_FILE)"