Workflow with Jupyter notebook (Python tool) broke overnight

[chrisha]

Good morning everyone,

we have a workflow scheduled on our Alteryx server that uses a Python tool. For the last three months the workflow has been running unchanged without any issues. This night, we received an error that the Jupyter notebook could not be run:

Failed to run Jupyter notebook: Zugriff verweigert (5) (Tool Id: 27)

(Zugriff verweigert = Access denied)

We have not changed the workflow or the environment. And a similar workflow with pretty much the identical Python tool works fine without any problems. I have resetted the Python tool on the server as suggested here: https://community.alteryx.com/t5/Alteryx-Designer-Knowledge-Base/How-to-reset-the-Python-tool/ta-p/3...

Running Python tools in the Designer on the server does not cause problems, neither does downloading the problematic workflow from the gallery and running it in the local designer. Now, I am a bit out of options here...

Any ideas what might cause the problem with this workflow and how to resolve it? I haven't deleted the workflow and re-uploaded it, because I'd rather like to know what the cause of the problem is instead of just working around it...

Best regards

Christopher

PS: Alteryx Server version is 2019.4

[chrisha]

Just a follow up:

After checking on all workflows using Jupyter notebooks, we noticed that the workflow mentioned above is the only failing with this error message. Other workflows either work fine, fail without any error or do not produce proper data streams. In the latter case, downstream tools fail with "00:42:38.116 - Error - ToolId 188: Both left and right inputs must have connections.", for example.

It seems like the Jupyter Notebooks are not running properly anymore on the server. When openening the workflows from the server either locally or in the designer on the server machine, however, the workflows run without any problem.

As said before, I have reset the Python tool, and also have removed and reuploaded the workflows in question -- without success, though.

Any ideas? Running our scheduled workflows manually now is not really a feasible option and not the reason we bought the server.

Thanks & best regards

Christopher

[chrisha · Accepted solution]

Finally found the solution after some back and forth with the Alteryx customer support.

For some reason, unbeknownst to me, the user that is used for running the workflows on the worker nodes, was missing permissions to access the python.exe located at C:\Program Files\Alteryx\bin\Miniconda3\envs\JupyterTool_vEnv\ -- the permissions were set only for this particular file and I have absolutely no idea how this happened. After explicitly granting read rights to the alteryx user, the problem was resolved.

[Nethal]

I do have the same problem. Can you explain how to explicitly grant read rights to the alteryx user.

Thanks

[davidhenington]

@chrisha Would it be possible to follow up on @Nethal question? 

I'd like to get in front of this occurring as i'm implementing the jupyter tool in the near future. 

Thank you! 

[chrisha]

It's more of a Windows issue, so you need to navigate to the folder or file in Windows explorer, right click, click on "Properties" go to the "Security" tab and change the settings. How to configure this, depends on how your IT configured your users and groups. I added the user that is used for running the Alteryx workflows (worker) and activated the "Read" setting. Your IT department might also be able to help you out - especially as you usually need admin permissions in order to change file or folder permissions in C:\Program Files\.

Best

Christopher