Setting up ESS (R)

I am a new emacs user. I am trying to set up my R-environment in spacemacs. I have added the ESS layer in my dotfile, but I cannot get the LSP to connect in order to get completion and etc when I am scripting in R. I keep on getting the message that the r-lsp is not connecting.

I have two R installations (one for the whole system, and one with the anaconda package manager). I want ESS to work with the first one, which has the language server installed.

I have already set up the ‘inferior-R-program’ variable to the installation I want. So, when I use the terminal inside emacs, the correct R-installation is called.

Any help would be greatly appreciated. Basically I want to get IDE features when I am scripting in R.

EDIT: The relevant part of my config file (.spacemacs)

(dotspacemacs-configuration-layers
 '(lsp
 (ess :variables
      ess-r-backend 'lsp
      inferior-R-program "/Library/Frameworks/R.framework/Resources/bin/R")
      ))