There are various reasons for environments to fail. Please try these recommendations

Error: “refused to connect”

If you attempt to use an environment and immediately see an error like “notebooks.firecloud.org refused to connect,” then you might be blocking third-party cookies. The Researcher Workbench requires third-party cookies to be enabled for environments to function.

To fix this, try the following:

• Use Google Chrome
• Ensure cookies are enabled by checking Google Chrome’s “Cookies and other site data” settings
• Don’t use Chrome’s incognito mode
• Delete your cache and cookies
• Disable any ad blockers or privacy extensions you may be using
• Add your researchallofus.org account to Chrome’s settings allowing the domain to access third-party cookies
• If these do not resolve the issue, please contact support@researchallofus.org

Error: "starting runtime ... failed due to ..."

If you attempt to use an environment and immediately see an error like “starting runtime failed due to” then you may have encountered an error either with our server connection or your connection. Before passing this error onto the Help Desk, there are a couple troubleshooting measures you can try yourself.

To fix the following:

• Check your internet connection is stable.
• Delete the environment if possible. If you are unable to delete the environment please contact support@researchallofus.org
• If the environment deletes successfully, try starting another new one.
• If the second attempt is unsuccessful, try ‘Duplicating’ the workspace and creating an environment within the new one.
• If this is unsuccessful as well, please contact support@researchallofus.org