I am trying to set up a new computer with Slicer 5.6.1 and the extensions I use. I am unable to download the Sandbox extension via the extension manager today. I see it listed in the browser, but when I click to “Install”, I get the following error message:
[Qt] Failed downloading: https://slicer-packages.kitware.com/api/v1/file/65a664ce2aa6efa9ffee562e/download
I have trouble understanding the CDash information, but I do see that an error is reported for several modules on the most recent stable build Configure (cdash.org), but I don’t know if this is related. I was able to install several extensions a few days ago on the same machine and the same network, so I don’t think the problem is on my end, but could be wrong about that.
Hold up, I appear not to be able to install any extensions to the new preview Slicer, even ones where I don’t see any errors on CDash, such as ErodeDilateLabel. I’m on Windows, FYI. Also can’t install ErodeDilateLabel on 5.6.1.
To recap, on a new Windows laptop, I installed 5.6.1 last week, and successfully installed >20 extensions via the Extension Manager. Today, I tried to install the Sandbox extension (for the Lights module), and, while it was listed on the Extension Manager, the download failed with the message posted above. I installed 5.7.0-2024-01-15 just now, and appear to be unable to download/install any extensions via the Extension Manager. Returning to 5.6.1, I was not able to install a different new extension (ErodeDilateLabel) either, with another “Failed downloading” error.
Since I can’t seem to download any extension, I am less sure that the error isn’t somewhere on my side (though my internet access is fine, and I had no issue downloading and installing the preview Slicer just now). Any troubleshooting tips? Anyone else successfully get an extension downloaded and installed via the extension manager on Windows today?
Possibly related to the issue @pieper linked above, all of the extensions I successfully downloaded last week (>20 of them), show version dates of 2023-12-12 in the “Manage Extensions” tab.
@muratmaga, I am probably inside the SCH firewall (the new laptop is a Seattle Childrens machine), but successfully installed extensions last week, and I’m not sure what would have changed. How do you manage your Slicer extensions? Do you download them outside the network and then install from file?
I just checked and am able to download extensions for 5.6.0 on a machine outside the firewall without a problem. So, it seems likely that I may be dealing with some sort of firewall issue which is blocking downloads via the extension manager. Any advice on dealing with this or confirming if it is the case?
Firewall issues can be unique to a computer (expired or missing certificates etc) and usually hard to chase. Try pip_install something basic (even numpy probably). If you are getting a SSL (or something along those lines), you are suffering from the certificate/firewall issue.
Separately, If you have Zscaler enabled, i would turn it off and try installing things without it. It never works with zscaler.
As a backup solution, we usually have zip archives all all three slicer versions with common extensions we use installed somewhere on intranet. unfortunately, I don’t think we did the 5.6.1 yet, so I can’t hep you there. But if you need 5.6.0, I can send you link.
However, if I put that URL into a web browser, it downloads a .zip file which I can use to install the extension from using the Extension Manager’s “Install from file” button. This process seems to work even with zScaler back on, and will be an acceptable workaround procedure for me. Thanks for the help @muratmaga !
Heuristics in too agressive firewalls sometimes flag the communication between the extensions server frontend (hosted on netlify) and backend (girder server hosted at Kitware) suspicious and may block access to the backend server. You can avoid the frontend server and download an extension directly from the backend via using bookmarks:
Open the Extensions Manager in Slicer
Click on the “wrench” icon in the top-right corner and select Edit Bookmarks...
Add the names of the extensions that you want to install to the list (each extension in a new line)
Click Install button next to each extension’s name that you want to install (or click Install bookmarked to install all bookmarked extensions)
If Install button is disabled then click Check for updates button to download the latest extension metadata descriptions from the server and then try installing again.
Let us know if this helped and then we add this instruction to the user manual.
Thanks for the idea, unfortunately it didn’t help:
Checking for updates identified a newer version of SlicerVMTK, but I was not able to install updated version the normal way (same download error). Instead I had to uninstall the existing SlicerVMTK and then install from browser-downloaded file.
However, I had not noticed the “Open Extensions Catalog Website” item on the wrench menu before. That is a better and quicker option for manually downloading several extension zip files than copying URLs from error messages.
One more thing which I had failed to mention so far but might be relevant for troubleshooting is that some period of time after a failed download (anywhere from 30s to several minutes later) I get another error message which shows up in the python interactor and in the error log:
[FD] [34152:27424:0117/162657.252:ERROR:dns_config_service_win.cc(793)] DNS config watch failed.
By the time I get this, the Extension Manager is closed, and I’m not doing anything related to trying to access the internet; it seems to be related to some monitoring which is happening in the background or some very extended time-out check, or something like that.
All I can say, on a properly configured SCH company laptop/desktop everything works fine (both on Mac and Windows) even behind the firewall. you might have to work with the IT to figure out the issue. Or simply do what I used to do, install everything outside of the company network, zip the folder and then copy it over to other computers.
Thanks for testing. Downloading zip files from the extension manager in the web browser is a good workaround; and when you install from file you can select all the downloaded .zip files at once, so overall it is not too painful. But it would be nice if you could work with your IT team to figure out what caused the problem and share it here so that we can learn from it.
I will open a ticket on this. However, since it is a low priority problem with an easy workaround, I’m not sure how likely I am to get our IT people to spend time on it. If we do figure it out, I will post back here.
Thank you both very much for your help on this, @lassoan and @muratmaga.
Thanks for taking a look, but I don’t think that was the issue yesterday. I could access and download extensions from a laptop outside our corporate network without a problem, and the issue wasn’t limited to just the Sandbox extension for the affected computer. Furthermore, if I copied and pasted the exact same URL into a web browser on the affected computer, I could download the zip file and successfully install the extension from that. So, I think the most likely explanation is that there is something which is getting blocked by the hospital network in the way the download is being triggered by the extension manager. I will follow up with our IT department and see if it is possible to diagnose and resolve the issue. If we figure it out, I will post back here.
