diff --git a/DESCRIPTION b/DESCRIPTION
index db855d06d3..109477fe0f 100644
--- a/DESCRIPTION
+++ b/DESCRIPTION
@@ -1,7 +1,7 @@
 Package: knitr
 Type: Package
 Title: A General-Purpose Package for Dynamic Report Generation in R
-Version: 1.45.11
+Version: 1.45.12
 Authors@R: c(
     person("Yihui", "Xie", role = c("aut", "cre"), email = "xie@yihui.name", comment = c(ORCID = "0000-0003-0645-5666")),
     person("Abhraneel", "Sarma", role = "ctb"),
diff --git a/R/utils-vignettes.R b/R/utils-vignettes.R
index 8b6bcd191a..f41600b6d0 100644
--- a/R/utils-vignettes.R
+++ b/R/utils-vignettes.R
@@ -47,13 +47,6 @@ vweave = function(file, driver, syntax, encoding = 'UTF-8', quiet = FALSE, ...)
 }
 
 vtangle = function(file, ..., encoding = 'UTF-8', quiet = FALSE) {
-  # a hack to generate an empty R script to cheat R CMD check because purl() is
-  # not reliable (#2052, #2036)
-  if (xfun::is_R_CMD_check() && !file.exists(with_ext(file, 'Rout.save'))) {
-    file = with_ext(file, '.R')
-    file.create(file)
-    return(file)
-  }
   purl(file, encoding = encoding, quiet = quiet, ...)
 }