Posit Assistant connection error

Posit AI: Feedback & Discussions
1

I just updated to RStudio 2026.04.0+526 , which includes Posit Assistant capability. There seems to be a connection error that means compatibility cannot be verified. I see the below error in the R console on loading RStudio

Error in .rs.downloadFile(url = "https://cdn.posit.co/posit-ai/manifest.json", :
cannot open URL 'https://cdn.posit.co/posit-ai/manifest.json'

Warning message:
In .rs.downloadFile(url = "https://cdn.posit.co/posit-ai/manifest.json", :
URL 'https://cdn.posit.co/posit-ai/manifest.json': status was 'SSL connect error'

Does anyone have any ideas on how to fix this? The URL opens in my browser so I don't think it is a firewall issue (but I may be wrong).

Thanks!

1 Like
2

I have the exact same problem.

3

I am getting the same error:

Error in .rs.downloadFile(url = "https://cdn.posit.co/posit-ai/manifest.json",  : 
  cannot open URL 'https://cdn.posit.co/posit-ai/manifest.json'
In addition: 
Warning message:
In .rs.downloadFile(url = "https://cdn.posit.co/posit-ai/manifest.json",  :
  URL 'https://cdn.posit.co/posit-ai/manifest.json': status was 'Couldn't resolve host name'

and made the following post Backend Disconnected stuck in a loop

4

@benjaminhlina Are you able to successfully load the manifest in your web browser?

https://cdn.posit.co/posit-ai/manifest.json

5

I'll make all followup questions in the issue (Posit Assist gets stuck in a backend disconnect loop · Issue #17609 · rstudio/rstudio · GitHub), and only update this Community thread once I've got a solution.

6

I've posted some questions (commands to run and share the output) in the issue.

7

I've replied to Issue I opened - https://cdn.posit.co/posit-ai/manifest.json this does open in my web browser

8

It appears there are two issues happening (essentially unrelated).

MANIFEST.JSON

First, problems downloading manifest.json; those are almost certainly due to proxy server/VPN issues. RStudio uses base R's download.file() for this, which defaults to libcurl and does NOT pick up the operating system proxy configuration automatically.

Configuring this typically involves setting environment variables, e.g.:

Sys.setenv(http_proxy = "http://proxy.corp.example:8080",
https_proxy = "http://proxy.corp.example:8080",
no_proxy = "localhost,127.0.0.1,.corp.example")

Some environments may also require specifying a CA certificate bundle:

Sys.setenv(CURL_CA_BUNDLE = "/path/to/corporate-ca-bundle.pem")

BACKEND DISCONNECTED LOOP

This happens when a saved chat conversation is corrupted. The code doesn't handle this properly and cannot recover. I will be working on a fix for this, tracked by Posit assistant "Backend Disconnected" for single project · Issue #17232 · rstudio/rstudio · GitHub. Also see that issue for ways to get unstuck.

9

We've made fixes to Posit Assistant that should prevent the "Backend Disconnected Loop" problem when conversations get corrupted. This will be in the next Posit Assistant update, hopefully sometime next week.