login.posit.cloud refused to connect.

[ajrominger]

I have used posit cloud for over a year and all of a sudden today I cannot log on. This url works fine: https://posit.cloud/

But when I click the "Log in" link I get this error:

I have tried two browsers (chrome and safari), tried three different devices, and tried two different wifi networks. Always the same error. On my mac I have tried both enabling the "auto detection" setting under wifi settings, and also turned this setting off. Either way, still the same connection error.

Any insights? Thanks!

[stevenolen]

Hi @ajrominger!

Sorry to hear you're having trouble. We aren't experiencing any site-wide outage at the moment, nor do I see any relative drop in traffic to login.posit.cloud that would implicate a widespread inability to visit the site.

It sounds like you've tried quite a few different tactics to help nail down why this is occurring as well! It's entirely possible, but rare, that the internet backbone in your region was having trouble connecting you to the datacenter(s) where this service run -- if that's the case I would imagine waiting a few hours would likely resolving the problem. Assuming you continue to have trouble: are you comfortable in a terminal? On your mac, I'd be curious to see if I or someone else on the forums could help diagnose after seeing the output of:

• nslookup login.posit.cloud. this command queries your DNS server and returns the IP addresses it knows can be used to reach login.posit.cloud
• traceroute login.posit.cloud. this command attempts to show the route your network traffic will travel to get from your mac to our servers at login.posit.cloud
• curl -v https://login.posit.cloud. this command is more-or-less equivalent to your browser fetching the webpage from login.posit.cloud, but displaying as many details about the request and response as possible.

One (or more) of these might help us narrow down the source of your difficulty connecting to this service!

[ajrominger]

Thanks @stevenolen! I am still getting a "refused to connect" error. Here is the info from the terminal commands you suggested:

nslookup login.posit.cloud:

Server:		192.168.4.1
Address:	192.168.4.1#53

Non-authoritative answer:
Name:	login.posit.cloud
Address: 192.168.4.1

traceroute login.posit.cloud

traceroute to login.posit.cloud (192.168.4.1), 64 hops max, 52 byte packets
 1  192.168.4.1 (192.168.4.1)  6.111 ms  4.134 ms  4.975 ms

curl -v https://login.posit.cloud:

*   Trying 192.168.4.1:443...
* connect to 192.168.4.1 port 443 failed: Connection refused
* Failed to connect to login.posit.cloud port 443 after 10 ms: Couldn't connect to server
* Closing connection 0
curl: (7) Failed to connect to login.posit.cloud port 443 after 10 ms: Couldn't connect to server

[stevenolen]

ah! that helps a ton.

192.168.4.1 is returning its own address for login.posit.cloud, which is wrong. this tends to happen with a wifi network that has a captive portal you need to use to login, but in general points to a definite network network problem for you. Perhaps a static dns entry has been incorrectly made somewhere in your network? We're not really able to help diagnose that part further.

for example, here's what that nslookup output looks like for me:

➜ nslookup login.posit.cloud
Server:		10.8.8.1
Address:	10.8.8.1#53

Non-authoritative answer:
Name:	login.posit.cloud
Address: 52.202.206.211
Name:	login.posit.cloud
Address: 34.200.100.119
Name:	login.posit.cloud
Address: 34.225.231.233
Name:	login.posit.cloud
Address: 44.219.168.252
Name:	login.posit.cloud
Address: 44.221.166.175
Name:	login.posit.cloud
Address: 44.205.190.237

[wispa84]

Hello! Just to say I'm suddenly getting the same error after happily using (and teaching with) posit cloud for years. It started less than a week ago, I'm also on a mac and my terminal has the same error. I'm getting this error both at work and at home.

Server: 192.168.4.1
Address: 192.168.4.1#53

Non-authoritative answer:
Name: login.posit.cloud
Address: 192.168.4.1

traceroute to login.posit.cloud (192.168.4.1), 64 hops max, 40 byte packets
1 192.168.4.1 (192.168.4.1) 4.171 ms 6.093 ms 3.821 ms

• Trying 192.168.4.1:443...
• connect to 192.168.4.1 port 443 failed: Connection refused
• Failed to connect to login.posit.cloud port 443 after 8 ms: Connection refused
• Closing connection 0
  curl: (7) Failed to connect to login.posit.cloud port 443 after 8 ms: Connection refused

[wispa84]

And.. just to say, two things seems to have helped solve it. (I'm on a mac). Closing chrome completely then

sudo dscacheutil -flushcache;
sudo killall -HUP mDNSResponder

Then I also did this

Steps for macOS:

1. Go to System Preferences > Network.
2. Select your active network connection (e.g., Wi-Fi).
3. Click Advanced... and go to the DNS tab.
4. Add new DNS servers (click the + button):

• Google DNS: 8.8.8.8

Turned on chrome and it worked

[stevenolen]

Thanks for the research!

I imagine:

@wispa84

Google DNS: 8.8.8.8

was the big help here. It appears that maybe the router you happen to be using (perhaps, eero?) has erroneously placed our login domain on a block list. I'm looking into that on our side, but I would imagine that setting your DNS to use a trusted public DNS server (1.1.1.1 is offered by cloudflare, or 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4 from google) would solve this if that's what is occurring!

[wispa84]

You are correct that I'm an Eero user, so this all makes sense - and thanks for the reply!
H

[ajrominger]

Thanks @wispa84, your steps also worked for me