Submit a ticket My Tickets
Welcome
Login  Sign up

Why won't PDFs download if I have selected my institution for proxy access?

If you have entered your institutional affiliation but find that you cannot download PDFs, please check that we have your institution's EZProxy information in our database:

  • Go to the Preferences section of the program and open the Institution Affiliation tab
  • If you have inputted your institution, is the checkbox underneath selected ("Use my institution proxy to access authenticated content online")?
  • Some institution proxy setups do not work when the "Remember my proxy login information" is selected - please try un-checking this option in the Credentials section and restarting the app. If this allows full-text access, you will need to enter your proxy credentials in every app session.

If the checkbox option for "Use my institution proxy..." is unavailable/grayed out, that means we do not have proxy info for your institution. Please contact your library to see if proxy access is offered and what the proxy URL is. This URL can be pasted into the field for "Manually Enter Proxy URL".

Always try un-selecting the "Remember my proxy login information" checkbox if the manual proxy URL doesn't work at first. Your library may offer access via a VPN instead of proxy. If you are connecting to your institution via VPN and are having problems downloading PDFs, please try selecting "No Affiliation" and restarting the app.

Occasionally, even if the checkbox for authenticated access is available, the EZProxy information we have for your institution may be out of date. This may prevent you from downloading any PDFs in the app.

To check if this is the case:

  • Go to the Preferences section of the program and open the Institution Affiliation tab
  • Select "No Affiliation" at the top
  • Click on the "Clear credentials" button at the bottom and uncheck "Remember my proxy login"
  • Quit and restart ReadCube Papers
  • Try downloading a free, open access paper (e.g. PLOS article)
  • If the download works, that means the proxy information we have on file may be incorrect/outdated. Please see the above information about obtaining and manually entering an EZProxy URL
  • Otherwise, please contact us at support@readcube.com

Did you find it helpful? Yes No

Send feedback
Sorry we couldn't be helpful. Help us improve this article with your feedback.