User troubleshooting

If your SEAD account name is not recognised by your authenticator application, it may be because you have downloaded an authenticator not published by Microsoft. SEAD only supports Microsoft Authenticator. 

You will need to download the Microsoft Authenticator application to your smart phone from the App Store (for iOS) or Google Play (for Android) to fulfil the login sequence.

If you have verified you are using the correct application but are not receiving prompts to authenticate on your mobile device, check your battery optimisation is turned OFF by following these steps. 

1. Open Microsoft Authenticator, and refer to the top right-hand corner, if there is a red dot above the three white dots, press this and then select 'Allow' to turn the battery optimisation off.

2. Then try logging in again on the SEAD landing page.

If you receive the ‘Error communicating with server’ message on your mobile device:

• If your device is connected to the home WiFi, then please turn your phone over to mobile data and try logging in again.

If you are switching to a new phone/tablet device: 

• the operating system of some mobile devices may not interact as expected with Microsoft Authenticator (namely the iOS 16, and some older versions of Android), in this case, try setup another phone or tablet device. In the case that you still have your old phone it may help if the old account is removed from the Microsoft Authenticator application on the previous device.

Other troubleshooting steps you can follow if you are having issues authenticating are:

• Ensuring your phone is connected to the internet (if required switch from WiFi to mobile data to ensure a good connection)
• From your phone's settings menu, ensure push notification are enabled
• Restarting your phone
• Ensuring you have the latest Microsoft Authenticator app version installed
• Clear your phones cache. On iPhone you will need to delete and reinstall the app. For Android navigate to the App storage settings, select 'Storage' and tap 'Clear cache'.
• Ensure your phone is on the latest OS version

• Your account may have been disabled. Accounts inactive for 45 days are automatically disabled to maintain security. If your account has been disabled, you will need to contact your SEAD system administrator for assistance.
• If you have entered your username or password using copy and paste, you may have accidentally included hidden characters or a space.
• Your organisation firewall may be blocking access. Try accessing SEAD while disconnected from your organisation's network.
• SEAD only supports use of the Microsoft Authenticator application.
• If you have changed your mobile phone you may need to reset your Microsoft multi-factor authentication. Contact your SEAD administrator to action this.
• If you need to reset your password this must be done via the 'Forgot my password' link in the initial SEAD sign in screen.
• Clear your browser cache.
• Try a different browser. ABS recommends use of either Google Chrome or Edge.

SEAD is enabled by cloud infrastructure, which may be blocked by some organisations’ firewall settings.

ABS cannot make changes to external organisations' infrastructure. Contact your ICT administrators to ensure that the correct networking addresses have been enabled. 

If you intend to use the Windows App on your organisation's workspace, your internal IT department will need to make it available to you.

The temporary password issued to you by your SEAD administrator lasts for 90 days. 

If you have forgotten your temporary password, to self-service a password reset, refer to Forgotten your password.

Your session will continue to run until a shutdown is required (either nightly shutdown or 14 day rebuild). You will be able to reset your password while your session is running. Refer to Forgotten your password for instructions on self-servicing a password reset.

• You must activate, then launch the VM. Refer to Accessing your project workspace for instructions. Follow the process and wait for each step to complete before progressing.
• Check your internet connection. If you have a weak or intermittent connection, this can affect launching your VM.
• Try launching the VM outside of your organisation's online environment. Some institutions’ or government departments’ firewall or other security settings may be preventing access to the SEAD portal and/or launching of the VM. Attempting to connect outside your agency’s online environment may assist in forming the VM connection.
• Restart your VM. As with restarting a computer, restarting your VM can sometimes resolve problems with launching your machine successfully. Wait 10 minutes to ensure the reboot of the machine is complete before attempting to launch again.
• Rebuild your VM by navigating to your VM by pressing the 'Manage' button on the corner of your VM tile in the portal. Refer to VM management options for instructions.
• If you are still having trouble, alert your SEAD administrator.

To use multiple displays or adjust the screen size when using SEAD on the Remote Desktop client (MSI) or the Windows App, you will need to adjust the display settings.

You can modify the display settings for your VM in the Remote Desktop Client or Windows App. Open the settings for your VM, open the display settings and turn ‘use default settings’ off. This will show the available display settings. You can then adjust the 'display configuration' to enable multiple displays. To adjust the screen size, make sure ‘Fit session to window’ is enabled.

Currently Microsoft does not offer an AVD client for Linux users. Because of this, we are unable to provide support for Linux users looking to access SEAD. While other options for connecting to the SEAD using Linux may exist, for example setting up a Windows VM on your Linux computer, then connecting to your SEAD VM using the Windows App or Remote Desktop Client, we cannot guarantee its reliability.

Virtual machines are destroyed approximately every 14 days for security purposes. If the 14 day timing will interfere with the timing of your project, you can choose to destroy and rebuild earlier than 14 days at a time that suits you. Refer to Virtual machine management options for more information.

Virtual machine Project and Output drives are backed up every night and kept for 14 days. Files outside of these drives are not recoverable.

Save your work to your Project or Output drives to ensure that your analysis is not lost, this also ensures other team members on your project have access to your work. Information saved outside of these drives is destroyed when your machine is rebuilt every 14 days.

Only one VM can be active at a time. However, If you are working on multiple projects you can have multiple VM's running code at the same time if you have local disk space allocated. This allows you to run jobs offline. Refer to How to run jobs offline for more information.

Try logging out of and stopping your VM, then begin the Start VM process again. If that does not work, rebuild your VM by navigating to your VM management options, refresh your session or clear your cache/browser history. If issues persist, contact your SEAD administrator.

When accessing SEAD through your organisation's virtual machine it is expected that the access would be slow given the multiple levels of virtualisation and processing of inputs. We recommend accessing SEAD on your base machine, which may make your VM more responsive.

System performance issues can occur for many different reasons and every issue requires a unique approach to troubleshoot. Many issues can be resolved by attempting one of the following:

• Ensure you have a good internet connection.
• Close and reopen the program you are using, and close any other programs or processes that may be consuming system memory.
• Confirm your project drive has available space, if not attempt to free up space.
• Refresh your network drives using the icon on the workspace desktop.
• Attempt to shutdown or rebuild your VM.

If you cannot see the Library, Project, and Output network drives in File Explorer, go to the desktop and double-click the 'Refresh Network Drives' icon. If you have just rebuilt your VM, allow additional time for the VM to initiate fully, this may take 5-10 minutes.

If after waiting, the drive(s) are still not appearing, try stopping and restarting your VM. If they are still not visible, and the refresh network drive button is not appearing on your desktop, you may need to try another VM rebuild.

An error like the following Stata example, may indicate exceeding the available memory allocated to your virtual machine:

Some analytical processes, software tools and methods for working with large datasets are more memory-intensive than others, to troubleshoot attempt the following:

1. Use an alternative method/program to manipulate or process the dataset. 

• Most statistical software tools are able to filter data as it is imported. If your analysis only needs variables a, b and c from a dataset containing 30 variables, then selecting, filtering or importing only these variables uses less memory.
• If you cannot do this in your software, consider creating a subsetted data file using another tool, such as Python, as the first step of preparing your data for analysis.
• If you are unsure of alternative methods, we recommend discussing with other researchers in your project team who are more familiar with your chosen statistical software. The ABS does not provide advice or training on using the analytical tools provided to you in SEAD.

2. Contact your SEAD administrator to request a larger machine. Larger machines incur higher running costs. With user charging, your administrator may need to consult with your organisation to confirm incurring additional expenses for your project before applying for a larger machine.

If you are receiving an error when attempting to unzip a file using 7zip, this may be because the default is set to ‘7zG’ and not ‘7zFM’. To confirm whether this is the case, attempt the following steps:

1. create a zipped file
2. choose Open With -> another app
3. from there go to “choose another app on your PC”
4. select 7Zip
5. select 7zFM

Clean up the drive contents, review and delete redundant files to free up space. Additional storage space can be requested of your SEAD administrators, however additional costs may be incurred.

You can contact your SEAD administrators to request input clearance for data, code or files to be loaded to your project, from either another project, or other sources that you hold.

You can extend your session to bypass the nightly shutdown, by one, two or three nights. Refer to Virtual machine management options for more information.

Yes, each virtual machine has R, STATA and Python available as standard software. SAS is available as a non-standard product so is not automatically provided on all machines. SAS requires a licence to be assigned to your virtual machine. You will need to ask your SEAD administrators if SAS is available to you.

Use the Posit Package Manager shortcut on the SEAD virtual machine desktop to check the range of R and Python packages available to you. Refer to Requesting code and packages for more information.

Each VM rebuild resets the connection between your local R environment, Posit, and CRAN. There may be a delay between package updates being released to CRAN and those updates being mirrored in Posit. When researchers try to install large metadata packages (like duckdb, tidyverse, arrow, etc) their available dependencies may not yet be mirrored in Posit, causing the installation to fail. 

A 'lock file' can be created using the 'pak' R package that names the required dependencies and last known stable versions, reducing the likelihood of synchronisation issues. R lock files behave similarly to Python's requirements.txt in this manner. This lock file will need to be kept in the P: drive or X: drive for persistence between VM rebuilds.

By default, packages are installed onto the C drive which gets wiped every time the VM rebuilds. To have packages which persist through rebuilds, we recommend changing the file path to have packages installed on either the Project drive (P:) or a local disk (if attached). Files saved to these drives are retained over rebuilds.

Python packages and their dependencies are regularly scanned for known vulnerabilities. Any package versions that exceed the ABS vulnerability threshold will not be available in Posit. If this occurs, check if there are alternative versions of the packages available. In most cases other versions of the package will be available to address known vulnerabilities. If you require assistance, please contact your SEAD administrators.

When launching Jupyter Notebook or JuypterLab from Powershell or command prompt, these may be referencing the incorrect directory resulting in an error message. To overcome this, enter the following command into Powershell or the Command prompt:

• To launch Jupyter Notebook, enter: 'python -m notebook'
• To launch JupyterLab, enter: 'python -m Jupyterlab'

You can check for any background processes that can be turned off for RStudio. For example, turning off the “show diagnostics for R” may improve the performance. Turning off diagnostics can improve performance.

How to disable R diagnostics in RStudio:

1. Go to Tools → Global Options.
2. Select Code from the left panel.
3. Click the Diagnostics tab.
4. Untick Show diagnostics for R.
5. Click Apply, then OK.

This reduces background processing and may make RStudio more responsive.

Some users may experience slower performance when opening or working with R projects (.Rproj files) stored on the Project drive (P:) in SEAD. For improved performance, it is recommended to run your code directly from the .R files rather than opening it within an R Project where possible. The Local Disk (X:) may provide improved performance when working with R projects. The X: drive is not be available by default. Provisioning of local disks is subject to SEAD administrator tolerances as this may incur additional costs.

Users with SAS installed now have the ability to edit the SAS configuration file located at “C:\Program Files\SASHome\SASFoundation\9.4\nls\en\sasv9.cfg”. This file governs various software settings and parameters, enhancing customisation options. Noting any changes will need to be repeated following machine rebuilds, as the C drive is destroyed on rebuild. To modify the SAS config file, follow these steps:

1. Access the file at the provided directory, using SAS or a text editor.
2. Proceed to make the necessary changes, in order to tailor the configuration.
3. Save the file (and a backup version on your P: drive, to reinstate following machine rebuilds), then test the software for desired outcomes. Exercise caution, as improper edits may lead to unexpected behaviour.

SEAD users can access a pre-written SAS configuration script that enhances SAS efficiency within SEAD. This includes the "VM_COMPLETE_SETUP.bat" script and supporting resources to streamline the setup process following machine rebuilds. Please refer to the resources located in the Shared Library Drive (L: Drive).

SAS configuration inside SEAD is tied to the size of your VM. Alternatively, the addition of local disk space (refer to How to jobs offline) can improve run times. Users can also work more on a local disk and then write to the Projects drive when finished, but beware of the costs involved with attaching a local disk space. You will need to consult with your SEAD administrators on attaching a local disk. A 1TB disk can cost between a minimum of $116 to $299 a month depending on usage transactions that would be cost recovered.

When creating a new compute cluster in Databricks there is a known issue with the new ‘Simple’ compute creation form in Databricks. Ensure that the Simple form setting is switched to ‘Simple form: OFF’ when creating a cluster. This will enable you to create a new cluster using the standard compute creation form.

PostgreSQL's data directory relocation is now automated to X:\psql\data when a local disk is attached, facilitating expanded storage capacity for data. This feature streamlines the process of accommodating larger datasets. To enable local disk contact your SEAD administrator. 

Due to a default setting in Microsoft, the system automatically uses Microsoft Edge to open any PDF file. You can open the PDF file by right-clicking on the file, selecting Open with > Adobe Reader. This launches the file using Adobe Acrobat Reader.