Troubleshooting Your Institution's Proxy

What's in this article:

• Common Proxy issues:
  • We're missing your Proxy IP address
  • The proxy stanza is not configured for https
  • Security certificate is out of date
  • None of the above, or authentication fails on a JSTOR page

If you're a librarian or information technology specialist at your institution, this page is the best place to get started if you suspect there are errors with your proxy. Here are some of the most common errors we see with proxies:

We're missing your Proxy IP address

If all of the steps look normal when you try to sign on through the proxy, but after you log in, it still doesn't say "Access Provided by [Your Institution]," it may be because we don't have your proxy's IP address on file.

Contact us to add it, then after confirmation, test access again.

Your proxy stanza is not configured for https

In 2018, we began forcing https for proxy access. Make sure that you have your proxy stanza configured for https as outlined on OCLC's Support site. 

If you're using another proxy service, like WAM or Apache, contact them directly or reach out to our support team and include the information in the bulleted list below.

The security certificate is out of date

If you log in to the proxy, then see the message: "Your connection is not private" or something similar, make sure that:

1. Your security certificate has been renewed
2. Confirm that your SSL configuration is set up according to the instructions your proxy provider recommends

Authentication still fails after the above has been confirmed

If all of the above do not apply to your issues with the proxy and you have confirmed the configuration, but you still can't authenticate, your users are unable to download, or if you encounter other errors on the JSTOR site, contact our support team and include the following information:

• Your proxy configuration
• Test credentials (if possible)
• Screenshots of the error
• Screenshots of the browser console (Right click on the page, then select Inspect > Network > JS)
• Submit a Debug on the error page you see (add: ?debug=true to the end of the URL that you see the error on, reload the page with that code in the URL, then press the Debug button on the bottom of the page)