When students try to log in to App Inventor on their Chromebooks by clicking "Create Apps!", they aren't redirected to a Google sign-in but instead are faced with a blank, grey page. I'm assuming that our web filter might be blocking them but the logs show nothing. Is there somewhere that I can find a list of URLs and/or IP addresses that App Inventor uses? I want to check them against our filter to see that they are being allowed. Thanks in advance for the help.
The following URLs are the ones you most likely want to whitelist:
- Main servers: http://ai2.appinventor.mit.edu/ and http://code.appinventor.mit.edu/
- Login server: http://login.appinventor.mit.edu
- Rendezvous (for establishing live testing connections): http://rendezvous.appinventor.mit.edu
If your teachers use CloudDB as part of their curriculum, you'll also need to whitelist connections to clouddb.appinventor.mit.edu on port 6381.
You may also want to take a look at:
Someone from MIT will contact you Matt. Yes the issue could be that there is a problem with something that needs to be white listed. Is this what you are seeing Grey screen when opening http://ai2.appinventor.mit.edu/ ?
Is your school blocking YouTube? A school that did that had a similar issue. What they white listed that was the solution Is the Appinventor login using a YouTube integration for logon using Google?
Yes and I can get in. Just not students.
Thank you for the information. I will be checking this out.
Yes, that is what the students are seeing. We do not block YouTube. Matter of fact, we use G Suite for Education.
@Matt_Georgetti we are having the exact same issue. Students on Chromebooks don't get the Sign In prompt to select their Google Account but staff do. Students just get the grey screen. I don't see any sites getting blocked by our iBoss content filter which is what I would expect if there was a site a teacher could get to but a student could not.
Please post updates if you get any answers. (I also checked the link to the other site above and whether necessary or not unblocked accounts.youtube.com but that didn't help.)
Unfortunate. Another school had its network admin whitelist accounts.youtube.com and that did the trick. The reasoning is Google added a redirect to their Google sign in that goes through accounts.youtube.com It fixed the issue there and is good now.
You iBoss filter may be the culprit; that staff can use the links ok but students not indicates the school network is in fact the issue and probably iBoss is disenfranchising students.
@Matt_Georgetti G Suite for Education probably is similar.
Have either of you contacted iBoss or G Suite for advice? What you guys say indicates individuals with higher Internet privileges have no issues logging in but your students do.
When working with your IT people, keep in mind that the App Inventor 2 link is a link to a Web app; not a Web page. Your software might be blacklisting Web applications. Also, the link is http; not https and your software might be blacklisting http sites.
-- Steve
As a temporary workaround, try having your students access App Inventor via http://ai2.appinventor.mit.edu/login/google to see if that alleviates the issue.
Actually. People should not use http://ai2.appinventor.mit.edu/login/google. That link will break at some point in the near future. However it is fine for testing today.
I have a question:
Are the student Chromebooks going through the same firewall rules as the teacher's?
-Jeff
Thank you everyone for the help. I will reach out to iBoss. I just figured I would start here to see if this was a common issue with a common fix. And, at first glance it does not seem like a filtering issue but, you're right, a web app is different from a webpage.
@Matt_Georgetti I JUST GOT IT TO WORK by bypassing our iBoss proxy for the ai2.appinventor.mit.edu and appinventor.mit.edu through the PAC Settings. Nothing was getting blocked by the proxy, mind you, but this did fix the issue for me.
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Yes! That's working for me too! Thanks for the suggestion.
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