Server certificate verification fails in some environments (was: Error 500, can't access the UI)

[massilchabane]

Hello I have an issue with the extension on duckdb v1.2.1
=>

When I start duckdb with the ui flag the server seems to start but I get a 500 http error in my browser

and if I enable the logs it seems that there is a query stuck and that keeps getting rollbacked

I'm on a mac M1 if that helps

Thanks in advance

[jraymakers]

Those log messages are actually normal.

Some more information would help:

• What specific query in the browser is returning a 500?
• Is your machine connected to the internet when you launched the UI?
• What version of the UI extension do you have?

[massilchabane]

Sure

What specific query in the browser is returning a 500? I have a 500 error on opening the UI itself

Is your machine connected to the internet when you launched the UI? yes my machine is connected to the internet

What version of the UI extension do you have? I use the version packaged with duckdb v1.2.1

[jraymakers]

It would be helpful to see any errors in the Network or Console tabs of your browser dev tools.

Also: Have you used the UI successfully before now? Or did you try for the first time recently?

[massilchabane]

No error in the console as I don't even get the http/js parts

This is the first time, I'm trying to use it, my colleague has the same issue.

Is it possible to get the logs of the extension somewhere ?

[jraymakers]

Very strange. Not much to go on.

There is some logging, but I suspect they won't help much for this kind of issue, unfortunately. (set logging_storage='stdout'; set enable_logging=true;` will turn on some logs, but I expect they'll be noisy and unhelpful.)

One idea of something to try: set the environment variable export ui_disable_server_certificate_verification=1 before running duckdb. We've seen a problem with this verification step in some environments before, though not recently.

[kksaohun]

Strange, it's happening for me too, on Windows. It did work before, but I removed the ~/.duckdb directory.

[massilchabane]

Thank you jraymakers,
with the env variable ui_disable_server_certificate_verification set to 1 it works 👍

[jraymakers]

Interesting. This appears to be caused by something specific to some environments, likely related to certificate configuration. (We released a new version recently that changed the default value of this setting, so that verification is enabled by default, because that's the more secure option - but it seems that still causes this problem in some environments.)

FYI @Y--

[kksaohun]

Can confirm, the Windows Powershell equivalent is:

PS C:\Users\xxx\Downloads> $env:ui_disable_server_certificate_verification=1
PS C:\Users\xxx\Downloads> .\duckdb.exe

Works with this.

[jraymakers]

If anybody else has this problem and finds that turning on ui_disable_server_certificate_verification as described above fixes it, please let us know by commenting here, and providing some information about your environment. We'd love to understand more about why this happens and how widespread it is. Thanks!