Troubleshooting off-campus access to library databases
Off-campus access to library databases is handled by the library's EZproxy server. EZproxy is usually very easy and dependable, but if your login does not seem to work, or if you experience trouble when connecting to library resources from off campus, please review our troubleshooting suggestions.
Things to check:
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, your computer must have the current version of the free 
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Verify that you are a current St. Kate's student, faculty, or staff.
Due to licensing restrictions, only current members of the St. Kate's community may access these resources from off campus. If you are not one of the above (for example, an alumna or a neighbor), you are welcome to use these resources in the library, but we cannot grant off-campus access.
Make sure you connect to resources through the library website.
Be careful about saving databases as bookmarks or favorites, since you might save a URL (address) that doesn't work for off-campus use. The safest thing is to connect through the library's website each time.
Make sure that you are you are entering your KateWay login correctly.
For more information, see Creating One Primary Password or contact the Help Desk to verify your account information.
Increase your KateWay login timeout setting.
If you seem to be suddenly disconnected in the middle of a search, it could be that you are getting logged out of KateWay, and thus logged out of the library database. We recommend that you change your KateWay timeout setting.
Are you trying to access electronic course reserves?
With some of our electronic course reserves, you actually link from CLICnet out to full text in other databases (for example, in one of the InfoTrac databases). To access these "linked" course reserves successfully from off campus, you need to have cookies enabled in your browser (see step-by-step directions below).
Accessing these e-reserves requires a two-step login (first for CLICnet, then for the off-campus access). If you don't have cookies enabled, you can't complete the login and you see this error message:
| Licensing agreements for these databases require that access be extended only to authorized users. Once you have been validated by this system, a "cookie" is sent to your browser as an ongoing indication of your authorization to access these databases. This cookie only needs to be set once during login. If you are using a firewall or network privacy program, you may need reconfigure it to allow cookies to be set from this server. As you access databases, they may also use cookies. Your ability to use those databases may depend on whether or not you allow those cookies to be set.To login again, click here. |
In our experience, Firefox usually has cookies enabled already, but this does not seem to be true of Internet Explorer. In Internet Explorer, you need to turn on "override automatic cookie handling" AND "always allow session cookies" in the Internet Options.
Are you seeing an error message about a host?
You will get an Hostname Error page when you attempt to access a database that has not yet been set up for use by EZproxy. It looks something like this:
| To allow /connect?session to work, your EZproxy administrator must first authorize this within the ezproxy.cfg file. Within this database's section of the file, the following line must be added: Host info.admintool.elsevier.com The EZproxy server must then be restarted to make this change take effect. |
The EZproxy administrator must specify all the domains (i.e., epnet.com) and computer hostnames (i.e., search.epnet.com) for which EZproxy should be used. Considering all the library's online resources, that's a lot of domains and hostnames! Database vendors often change domain names, or pull content from new computer hosts without ever informing libraries. Thus, when a hostname error occurs, EZproxy's configuration must be updated to include the new host for proxying.
To expedite correction of this error, please note:
- the name of the resource you were trying to access
- the computer hostname line listed on the error page
and report it via the problem form.
Are you seeing "404 Error (Page not Found)" or "Server not Found or DNS Error"?
These are common error messages that occur during general surfing of the Internet. These errors occur for a variety of reasons, and may or may not be related to EZproxy. Some possibilities:
- An incorrect URL, outdated link or a missing page
- Some aspect of your network is down or very busy
In some cases, these errors can be resolved simply by clicking the refresh or reload button in your browser.
If you see consistent errors like this, please note what the error page says, the URL you were trying to access (and from where) and other relevant information, and and report it via the problem form.
Set your browser so that it accepts cookies.
Both EZproxy and certain databases send "cookies" when you connect to them to verify, during your session, that you are an authorized user. If you see an error message related to cookies, your browser might currently be set to disallow cookies.
In Firefox:
- Go to Tools
Options Privacy. - Select Cookies.
- "Allow sites to set cookies" should be checked.
- Click OK to close Options.
In Internet Explorer:
- Go to Tools Internet Options Privacy Advanced.
- "Override automatic cookie handling" should be checked.
- "Always allow session cookies" should be checked.
- Click OK.
- Click OK again to close Internet Options.
In Safari:
- Go to Preferences Security Accept Cookies
- Enable"Always."
See also How to Enable Cookies in Your Web Browser from Computing Services.
Set your browser so that JavaScript is enabled.
If you can search a database and access articles, but sometimes images don’t display correctly, or other parts of the database look strange, perhaps JavaScript has been disabled in your browser. Check the setting in your browser as follows:
- In Firefox, go to Tools Options and make sure both "Enable Java" and "Enable JavaScript" are checked.
- In Internet Explorer 6.0 or higher, go to Tools Internet Options Security. Choose "Enable" under Scripting of Java applets and click OK. Next, go to Tools Internet Options Advanced. Options vary from computer to computer, but look for "Java (Sun)," and check the box.
See also How to Enable Java and Java Scripting in Your Browser from the St. Kate's Help Desk.
Popup blockers
If you are using a popup blocker, temporarily disable it, and then try accessing our resources again. Newer versions of some browsers block popup windows, and may block them by default. If your browser has the option of allowing popups from some websites, add pearl.stkate.edu to the list of allowable sites (exceptions). (RefWorks users should also allow popups for www.refworks.com.)
- In Firefox, go to Tools Options Web Features. You can either uncheck the box next to "Block Popup Windows" to competely turn off popup blocking, or click on the Allowed Sites button to enter pearl.stkate.edu as an exception.
- In Internet Explorer 7.0 or higher, go to Tools Pop-up Blocker.
Keep in mind that even if you don't have popup blocking software, many IE and Firefox toolbars such as the Google Toolbar, Yahoo Toolbar, AOL Toolbar, etc. automatically block popups. If you are using this type of toolbar, be sure to disable popup blocking while you are using our site, or edit the configuration settings to allow pearl.stkate.edu.
Are you using AOL or any other ISP that uses its own proprietary software?
Some ISPs, such as AOL, CompuServe, Earthlink, Juno, MSN, NetZero, Prodigy, RoadRunner, or Yahoo!DSL provide proprietary software to access the Internet. If you use this software, you may experience problems accessing or displaying information in our databases. The simplest way to resolve this issue is to connect to the Internet, minimize the AOL/Prodigy/Yahoo!DSL (or other ISP software) window, open Firefox or Internet Explorer, and then use Firefox or Internet Explorer to connect to the library’s resources.
Another common problem is that during set up of dial-up, cable, or broadband connections, certain browser settings get configured according to the ISP's preferences. These settings may be incompatible with what is required for off-campus access to library databases.
NetZero uses a proxy in their HiSpeed service. You must disable this setting in order to access the library's resources from off-campus.
Does your ISP use an accelerator (such as Juno SpeedBand or NetZero HiSpeed service)?
A Web accelerator is an application used to make Web pages load quickly. This is done by various means, including data compression. If you are using Juno SpeedBand or NetZero HiSpeed to access the Internet, or any other ISP that has any kind of accelerator integrated into its connection software, you should temporarily disable the accelerator in order to access our resources.
In most cases when an ISP uses an accelerator, an icon appears in the system tray in the lower right-hand corner of the screen. The icon contains an option to disable the accelerator, which will usually enable you to log in and access our online databases.
Earthlink accelerator
NetZero HiSpeed
Web accelerators including AOL TopSpeed: Turning them off
Some accelerators have an exclusion list feature that enables you to exclude certain sites from acceleration. If neither of these strategies helps, try the following workaround:
In Firefox:
- Go to Tools Options General Connection Settings.
- Click on the Connections tab
- In the "No proxy for:" box, enter:
.stkate.edu [that's dot stkate dot edu]. - Keep clicking OK until all the windows close and you are back in FireFox. At this point, access to EZproxy should be restored.
In Internet Explorer:
- Go to Tools Internet Options...
- Click on the Connections tab
- Scroll through the Dial-up settings to locate NetZero, then click on NetZero and click Settings.
- Under Proxy Server, click Advanced.
- In Exceptions, scroll to the end of the list, then type a semi-colon (;) followed by St. Kate's's domain name (stkate.edu): ;stkate.edu
All the other sample entries have an asterisk (*) in front, and although it won't hurt, that isn't required for this entry. Do not include the port number. - Keep clicking OK until all the windows close and you are back in Internet Explorer. At this point, access to EZproxy should be restored.
Does your browser use an accelerator, such as the Google Web Accelerator or DownThemAll in Firefox?
These accelerators also spell trouble for EZproxy. You should disable them.
See additional information about the Google Web accelerator.
Do you use a personal firewall?
Personal firewalls can sometimes cause problems with EZproxy. Make an exception in your firewall for pearl.stkate.edu. If that doesn't work, try temporarily disabling the firewall.
Are you trying to connect from your place of work?
If you are connecting from a corporation, hospital campus, school district, or government office, there may be a firewall in place that prevents you from using EZproxy. If this is the case, you will need to contact your help desk or IT staff to see if the firewall can be adjusted to allow you to use EZproxy. Some companies have employee's browsers configured to use their own proxy server (or to not enable acceptance of cookies, or some other security setting) that may interfere with EZproxy's functioning. Please check with your IT staff at work to see if this could be causing you trouble.
Try clearing your browser's cache files.
Try clearing your browser cache. After clearing the cache, close out your browser, reopen it and try logging in again.
- In Firefox, go to Tools Options Privacy "Clear all information stored while browsing." Select the Clear All button.
- In Internet Explorer 6.0 or higher, go to Tools Internet Options General Temporary Internet Files. Select the Delete Files button, then select "Delete All Offline Content." Click OK. Also click the Delete Cookies button. This will clear temporary files and cookies from IE.
Are you trying to access an electronic book in the Gale Virtual Reference Library?
To access these e-books, you'll need to have cookies enabled in your browser. If cookies are not enabled, you'll see the this message: "You have logged out and your session has ended. Where can we take you?" See the section on cookies above for instructions on enabling cookies. If you're using Internet Explorer, be sure to enable session cookies.
Are you trying to access an electronic book from NetLibrary?
If you happen to be searching in CLICnet from an off-campus location and find a NetLibrary e-book, you will need a free personal account in NetLibrary in order to actually view the e-book. You can do that by connecting to NetLibrary from the library's website and selecting "Create a Free Account." Once you've created an account, you'll be able to view our NetLibrary e-books, regardless of where you start. For more information see our guide to NetLibrary.
Your login is correct, and you've checked your browser settings and Internet connection. What else could be causing a problem?
Here are a few possibilities:
- EZproxy's configuration for the database needs to be adjusted.
If a database and its special features work fine from on-campus (which doesn't use EZproxy), then EZproxy's configuration may need to be adjusted to meet the database's particular requirements. [More info] - The problem is with the vendor's site.
Like any information technology, there are often problems on the vendor's end that lead to problems with the database. These problems are generally resolved fairly quickly once the vendor is aware of them. - Certain content or features are not part of the library's subscription.
In the case of a few databases, the library's subscription does not provide access to all features or content on a site. (For example, the library has access to most, but not all, of the journals in the JSTOR service.) This may result in an error message or login screen. On the other hand, it may also be that what appear to be links to those features are simply not active.
Still having problems getting in from off campus?
If you continue to have problems accessing information through the EZproxy server, please let us know using our problem form.