Alphafold prediction Google sign in error message: "Alphafold prediction send sequence to Google Colab returned: None"

[Michael.McManus@…]

Hi
Apologies if I am missing something… but I am having some trouble with Alphafold prediction in ChimeraX.

I can’t seem to login to Google.

I am using version 1.8.dev202405040553 (2024-05-04) on a Mac.

Here are my steps and observations:

  1.  In ChimeraX, selected Alphafold prediction
  2.  Provided sequence and selected ‘Predict’. A popup appears indicating that Google sign-in is required.
  3.  Selecting ‘Sign in’ I am prompted with ‘Are you sure you want to leave this page? Changes that you made may not be saved’
  4.  A Google sign-in window appears for ~2 seconds, and disappears before I could add my credentials. Then, a new window appears indicating that “Alphafold prediction send sequence to Google Colab returned: None”

Would you be able to advise? Happy to provide more information, if needed.

hanks!
-M

[Tom Goddard]

Thanks for reporting the problem. After I erased by Google login info (on Mac in ~/Library/Application Support/UCSF ChimeraX/QtWebEngine/Alphafold") I observed the same problem you describe.

But you can simply dismiss the ChimeraX error message, then login to Google in the ChimeraX AlphaFold Run window (it may have been pushed behind the ChimeraX window when the error dialog appears). Then I get another error that says ChimeraX could not send the sequence. Now you have logged into Google from ChimeraX and it will remember the login so it won't ask next time. The AlphaFold prediction may start automatically after you login -- I tried two times and one time it started automatically and the other time it did not start. When it did not start I closed the AlphaFold Panel and pressed the Predict button on the AlphaFold pane in ChimeraX and it ran.

So basically the solution in your current ChimeraX is to ignore the error and login to Google and try again since then ChimeraX won't ask you to login to Google again.

[Tom Goddard]

Fixed.

It appears Google Colab changed how their sign-in page works so it replace the AlphaFold run page. Then ChimeraX saw a new page was loaded and tried to send the prediction sequence to that page, but it was the Google sign-in page so that failed. I fixed the ChimeraX code so that it checks that the page is actually the AlphaFold page before trying to send the sequence.