R-conda example repo isn't working any more?

Binder
8

No, the real issue is that launching from new builds using the r-conda repo as a template don’t work. That was the original issue that had @ctb investigating and then he just happened to then try the r-conda repo and hit the rough patch due to the MyBinder system being busy. So the title is a little misleading; it should better read ‘Repos based on the R-conda example aren’t working any more?’.

You can see that by going to this repo that is based on using the r-conda one as a template. If you go there and press the JupyterLab launch option at the top it will launch and then when you try to switch to RStudio from the launcher it will fail.
It will also fail if you try to adjust the URL by replacing lab with rstudio at the end.
Or it will also fail if you use the RStudio launch buttons that have ?urlpath=rstudio at the end.

One difference I see in the URL that pressing the tile from the launcher produces that doesn’t work is the addition of the port :80 near the beginning, like so:

https://notebooks.gesis.org:80/binder/jupyter/user/ngs-docs-2020-ggg-201b-rnaseq-bg2yqhfs/....

Whereas the link that launches from the old build at r-conda now where RStudio does work, makes something like this with no 80:

https://notebooks.gesis.org/binder/jupyter/user/binder-examples-r-conda-1wzgbr4y/...

It tried playing around with the URL to make it look like the other that works and that didn’t seem to help at first…

UPDATE - WORKAROUND TO GET INTO RSTUDIO INTERFACE in launches from newer builds:
I just stumbled on a workaround path to get RStudio to work in the session. It’s not easy but getting rid of the :80 and passing the token in the authorization step is the trick. Do this:

  1. Use a launch ending in ?urlpath=rstudio as if you’d want to launch to RStudio directly.
  2. When the session comes up and says cannot provide a secure connection and invalid response, remove the :80 from the URL. Hit return to pass that in to the current connection. It’ll refresh and the connection will add the :80 back to URL automatically. However, that step will have passed the token in and authorized things in this session.
  3. Remove the :80 from the URL, again. Replace rstudio at the end of the URL with lab and then hit return to enter that into the URL. Now it should go into the JupyterLab interface.
  4. Now you can go to the launcher pane in JupyterLab and press the RStudio tile to go into RStudio interface.