Troubleshooting Remote Access Portal

Incorrect password

If  you find a password you are confident is correct is not working, try the following:

  • Make sure you are entering your username in lowercase only.
  • Type more slowly (some people have found keypresses are missed or mixed up by RAP when typed quickly).
  • Use SHIFT rather than CAPS LOCK to type capital letters in the password (some people have reported problems with CAPS LOCK failing to be transmitted).
  • Check for symbols that may be in a different place on a US keyboard, such as ", @, #, £ and (some people find the login screen defaults to a US keyboard layout) - consider changing your password if they cause you problems.

Black screen on Linux nodes

If you get a black screen after reconnecting to a Linux node, sometimes with the message "could not acquire name on session bus", you may need to kill your running session and start a new one.

Note: Please don't just leave your session running indefinitely or switch to another node - that will reduce the resources available to everyone. Contact IT Support if you require assistance.

To kill your session, open Terminal on another Linux node in RAP, or a departmental desktop, or connect via SSH to gate, and run:

ssh HOSTNAME pkill -u USERNAME -f x-session-manager

Replace USERNAME with your username and HOSTNAME with the RAP node name. For "Linux Remote Access" use the hostname lts (short for Linux Terminal Server).

Wait a minute to ensure all processes have stopped, then reconnect in RAP.

If that doesn't work, you may need to forcibly kill all processes:

ssh HOSTNAME pkill -u USERNAME -9

If this is a recurring issue for you, please consider the following:

  1. If possible, log out of the remote session (Menu > End the current session) when you are done, rather than just closing the browser tab, which leaves the remote session running and may lead to this issue when you reconnect.
  2. Make sure your processes aren't trying to use more than 50% of the available CPU and RAM on any of the shared Compute servers, as that will cause them to be throttled, which seems to contribute to this issue. Consider using the ARC Service for more intensive workloads.
  3. Check the Compute & Terminal Services Machines page to see if another node has more resources available.
  4. Check you haven't run out of disk space - that prevents the necessary temporary files being created when you log in. See Disk Quotas, File Storage and Archiving for how to check and possible solutions.
  5. Try using an alternative method of connecting to the nodes, such as X2Go or SSH, which may be more resilient.

Keys not sent to the remote server

Some key combinations (e.g. Ctrl-W) are intercepted by the local machine or web browser, and therefore are not sent to the remote server. Possible workarounds are:

  • Use the mouse, or another key combination if available.
  • Press Ctrl+Alt+Shift all together and release them to bring up the RAP menu, then select "On-screen keyboard". Use the on-screen keyboard to enter the keys required. Then press Ctrl+Alt+Shift again and select "None" to close it.
  • Use an alternative method of connecting to the server, such as X2Go.

We hope there will be a better solution available in a future version of the portal.

Unable to launch browser

Because we use networked home directories (shared between machines), you can only run each browser on one Linux machine at a time.

If you need to remotely close a browser, or the browser has crashed without unlocking your profile, please see:

Other problems

Please contact IT Support for assistance.

Last updated on 14 Jul 2025, 1:42pm. Please contact us with feedback and comments about this page.