connector ping: Access Denied

I am referring to the following support information:
https://www.zotero.org/support/kb/connector_zotero_unavailable

The Zotero Connector works fine when I am off campus. However, on campus, when I check "http://127.0.0.1:23119/connector/ping" in Chrome, I get the following message:

Access Denied (policy_denied)
Your system policy has denied access to the requested URL.
For assistance, contact your network support team.

I'm wondering if you can provide me with any more specific information about this problem that I can share with the IT office of my university? What sort of "system policy" might make Zotero connector not work -- even when I have Zotero open?
  • edited August 27, 2018
    The linked article and the error message should be enough for them to go on.
  • When I tried to replicate it with them, I now get the following message:

    ------------
    Network Error (tcp_error)
    A communication error occurred: ""
    The Web Server may be down, too busy, or experiencing other problems preventing it from responding to requests. You may wish to try again at a later time.
    For assistance, contact your network support team.
    ------------

    I gather that my university system is blocking this web address.

    For Zotero connector to work, I must be able to have access to this web address -- is that correct?
  • 127.0.0.1 is the IP address for your computer itself — i.e., the browser is just trying to talk to Zotero running on the same computer. That should always work. The most common misconfiguration here is a proxy server that's trying to proxy 127.0.0.1. Since that's just your own computer, the proxy server shouldn't interfere with it.

    But this is explained on the linked page, and they should know it too. You really should be able to just point them to that page.
  • Thanks for the clarification. (I'm at a university in Japan and the IT people had never heard of Zotero. Hence, my inquiries.) No luck yet but hopefully they will figure it out.
  • Zotero isn't really relevant. It's just that your browser needs to be able to access a webserver running on your local machine via 127.0.0.1. That should be all they need to know to fix this.
  • OK, great. Thanks!!
  • Just to follow up: problem solved!

    In case others face the same problem, on my Mac, I updated the Network settings (Advanced > Proxies) by adding 127.0.0.1 to "Bypass proxy settings for these Hosts & Domains:"
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