# Unable to preview uploaded XLSForm on a self-hosted ODK Central installation

**URL:** <https://forum.getodk.org/t/unable-to-preview-uploaded-xlsform-on-a-self-hosted-odk-central-installation/46494>\
**Category:** Support\
**Tags:** odk-xforms, odk-xlsform, odk-central\
**Created:** [April 23, 2024, 11:09am UTC](https://forum.getodk.org/t/unable-to-preview-uploaded-xlsform-on-a-self-hosted-odk-central-installation/46494 "2024-04-23T11:09:46Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 11\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Daniel\_Karengera](https://getodk.b-cdn.net/user_avatar/forum.getodk.org/daniel_karengera/32/25322_2.png) [@Daniel\_Karengera](https://forum.getodk.org/u/Daniel_Karengera)\
**Post date:** [April 23, 2024, 11:09am UTC](https://forum.getodk.org/t/unable-to-preview-uploaded-xlsform-on-a-self-hosted-odk-central-installation/46494/1 "2024-04-23T11:09:46Z")

</div>

**1. What is the issue? Please be detailed.**

After installing ODK central on a Ubuntu 22.04.4 LTS server, we faced the below error message while trying to preview uploaded XLSForms.

"Loading Error  
Error occured during the loading of this form. We do not recommend you use this form for data entry until this is resolved.

Please contact [support@getodk.org](mailto:support@getodk.org) with the link to this page and the error message below:

Failed to load form"

**2. What steps can we take to reproduce this issue?**

- Log into ODK central
- Navigate to projects
- Go to a created Form
- Click on preview
- The system will open a new page with the above mentioned error message.

**3. What have you tried to fix the issue?**  
We checked the logs of Enketo service, and below is the error message we noticed.

TypeError: HTTPConnection.request() got an unexpected keyword argument 'chunked'

During handling of the above exception, another exception occurred:

Traceback (most recent call last):  
File "/usr/bin/docker-compose", line 33, in   
sys.exit(load\_entry\_point('docker-compose==1.29.2', 'console\_scripts', 'docker-compose')())  
File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/compose/cli/main.py", line 81, in main  
command\_func()  
File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/compose/cli/main.py", line 200, in perform\_command  
project = project\_from\_options('.', options)  
File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/compose/cli/command.py", line 60, in project\_from\_options  
return get\_project(  
File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/compose/cli/command.py", line 152, in get\_project  
client = get\_client(  
File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/compose/cli/docker\_client.py", line 41, in get\_client  
client = docker\_client(  
File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/compose/cli/docker\_client.py", line 170, in docker\_client  
client = APIClient(use\_ssh\_client=not use\_paramiko\_ssh, \*\*kwargs)  
File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/docker/api/client.py", line 197, in _init_  
self.\_version = self.\_retrieve\_server\_version()  
File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/docker/api/client.py", line 221, in \_retrieve\_server\_version  
raise DockerException(  
docker.errors.DockerException: Error while fetching server API version: HTTPConnection.request() got an unexpected keyword argument 'chunked'

**4. Upload any forms or screenshots you can share publicly below.**

 ![ODK central error message](https://getodk.b-cdn.net/uploads/default/original/3X/d/1/d146edec2e7e2668449895f8142bd44591d1ea16.jpeg)

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![yanokwa](https://getodk.b-cdn.net/user_avatar/forum.getodk.org/yanokwa/32/1695_2.png) [@yanokwa](https://forum.getodk.org/u/yanokwa)\
**Post date:** [April 23, 2024, 1:29pm UTC](https://forum.getodk.org/t/unable-to-preview-uploaded-xlsform-on-a-self-hosted-odk-central-installation/46494/2 "2024-04-23T13:29:58Z")

</div>

What version of Central are you using? To see your version, click on the question mark icon in the upper right section of your Central menu bar, then click Version. If you don't see the question mark, you can see the version by adding version.txt to the root URL (e.g., [https://demo.getodk.cloud/version.txt](https://demo.getodk.cloud/version.txt)).

What happens if you run this command? Does it print a 1, a 0, or nothing?

```sh
docker exec -it central-enketo-1 curl https://$(grep "^DOMAIN=" ~/central/.env | cut -d = -f 2) | grep -c getodk.org

```

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Daniel\_Karengera](https://getodk.b-cdn.net/user_avatar/forum.getodk.org/daniel_karengera/32/25322_2.png) [@Daniel\_Karengera](https://forum.getodk.org/u/Daniel_Karengera)\
**Post date:** [April 23, 2024, 2:46pm UTC](https://forum.getodk.org/t/unable-to-preview-uploaded-xlsform-on-a-self-hosted-odk-central-installation/46494/3 "2024-04-23T14:46:30Z")

</div>

Hi @yanokwa .

We are running v2023.5.1 as per the below version details.  
versions:  
20dcbf46703ded595b82bda713c624673a3faff9 (v2023.5.1)  
+f34076ae9a1b74f7e928126a1dc2246eda2bb25f client (v2023.5.0-2-gf34076ae)  
983ec81e69793fdb589ffdc346a16ef977489be4 server (v2023.5.0)

As for the output of the shared command, it is printing out a 0.

/odkcentral/central$ docker exec -it central-enketo-1 curl https://$(grep "^DOMAIN=" ~/central/.env | cut -d = -f 2) | grep -c [getodk.org](http://getodk.org)  
0

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![yanokwa](https://getodk.b-cdn.net/user_avatar/forum.getodk.org/yanokwa/32/1695_2.png) [@yanokwa](https://forum.getodk.org/u/yanokwa)\
**Post date:** [April 23, 2024, 9:39pm UTC](https://forum.getodk.org/t/unable-to-preview-uploaded-xlsform-on-a-self-hosted-odk-central-installation/46494/4 "2024-04-23T21:39:47Z")

</div>

The output of that command shows that the Enketo container can't reach the Nginx container over the Internet. Usually, this is because there is some internal DNS setting that isn't mapping [yourdomain.com](http://yourdomain.com) to the server. Perhaps your IT team can help.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Daniel\_Karengera](https://getodk.b-cdn.net/user_avatar/forum.getodk.org/daniel_karengera/32/25322_2.png) [@Daniel\_Karengera](https://forum.getodk.org/u/Daniel_Karengera)\
**Post date:** [April 24, 2024, 8:23am UTC](https://forum.getodk.org/t/unable-to-preview-uploaded-xlsform-on-a-self-hosted-odk-central-installation/46494/5 "2024-04-24T08:23:00Z")

</div>

Hello @yanokwa. Thanks again for your support on this. Actually, our domain is only accessible within our country. Might that be the cause? but again I see in the logs it's trying to call an external IP _(192.168.16.9 on port 8005)_ , I wanted to understand why this? refer to the log portion bellow

nginx-1 | 2024/04/24 07:55:13 [error] 20#20: \*2000 upstream timed out (110: Connection timed out) while reading response header from upstream, client: 172.80.4.8, server: local, request: "POST /-/transform/xform/OXzmCGrYEJhGPWDyhmJKditrYcevens HTTP/1.1",  
"POST /-/transform/xform/OXzmCGrYEJhGPWDyhmJKditrYcevens HTTP/1.1", upstream: [http://192.168.16.9:8005/-/transform/xform/OXzmCGrYEJhGPWDyhmJKditrYcevens](http://192.168.16.9:8005/-/transform/xform/OXzmCGrYEJhGPWDyhmJKditrYcevens)",

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Dr\_Vivek\_Gupta](https://getodk.b-cdn.net/user_avatar/forum.getodk.org/dr_vivek_gupta/32/15988_2.png) [@Dr\_Vivek\_Gupta](https://forum.getodk.org/u/Dr_Vivek_Gupta)\
**Post date:** [May 30, 2024, 1:26pm UTC](https://forum.getodk.org/t/unable-to-preview-uploaded-xlsform-on-a-self-hosted-odk-central-installation/46494/6 "2024-05-30T13:26:20Z")

</div>

I am having the same issue on my locally hosted ODK behind a nginx reverse proxy.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Dr\_Vivek\_Gupta](https://getodk.b-cdn.net/user_avatar/forum.getodk.org/dr_vivek_gupta/32/15988_2.png) [@Dr\_Vivek\_Gupta](https://forum.getodk.org/u/Dr_Vivek_Gupta)\
**Post date:** [May 30, 2024, 1:35pm UTC](https://forum.getodk.org/t/unable-to-preview-uploaded-xlsform-on-a-self-hosted-odk-central-installation/46494/7 "2024-05-30T13:35:42Z")

</div>

could the IP be the docker container IP that is assigned by docker to individual containers.  
You can check container IPs using

> docker inspect -f '{{.Name}} - {{range .NetworkSettings.Networks}}{{.IPAddress}}{{end}}' $(docker ps -aq)

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Jackson\_Ngabonziza](https://getodk.b-cdn.net/user_avatar/forum.getodk.org/jackson_ngabonziza/32/25324_2.png) [@Jackson\_Ngabonziza](https://forum.getodk.org/u/Jackson_Ngabonziza)\
**Post date:** [May 30, 2024, 1:42pm UTC](https://forum.getodk.org/t/unable-to-preview-uploaded-xlsform-on-a-self-hosted-odk-central-installation/46494/8 "2024-05-30T13:42:52Z")

</div>

Hello @Dr_Vivek_Gupta  
Could you please share the logs or any the error message you getting while trying to view the forms.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Dr\_Vivek\_Gupta](https://getodk.b-cdn.net/user_avatar/forum.getodk.org/dr_vivek_gupta/32/15988_2.png) [@Dr\_Vivek\_Gupta](https://forum.getodk.org/u/Dr_Vivek_Gupta)\
**Post date:** [May 30, 2024, 1:53pm UTC](https://forum.getodk.org/t/unable-to-preview-uploaded-xlsform-on-a-self-hosted-odk-central-installation/46494/9 "2024-05-30T13:53:39Z")

</div>

Thanks Jackson. I have done a fresh installation in a VM and will be able to access logs tomorrow morning. I had shared logs in an earlier post

> [@Enketo not loading](https://forum.getodk.org/t/enketo-not-loading/44122):
>
> 1. What is the issue? Please be detailed. I upgraded ODK central to latest version 2023.4 in multiple steps from 1.2.2 All forms and data are showing and I am able to downlaod submissions However the ENKETO editing is not working I get a circular pulsing bubble in middle and then I get an error 2. What steps can we take to reproduce this issue? I am behind a reverse proxy where SSL termination happens My configurations are shared here .env DOMAIN=survey.xxx.yyyu # Used for Let's Encry…

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Dr\_Vivek\_Gupta](https://getodk.b-cdn.net/user_avatar/forum.getodk.org/dr_vivek_gupta/32/15988_2.png) [@Dr\_Vivek\_Gupta](https://forum.getodk.org/u/Dr_Vivek_Gupta)\
**Post date:** [June 1, 2024, 4:50am UTC](https://forum.getodk.org/t/unable-to-preview-uploaded-xlsform-on-a-self-hosted-odk-central-installation/46494/10 "2024-06-01T04:50:24Z")

</div>

Here is my configuration please

**Reverse Proxy**

```auto
server {
 listen 443 ssl http2;
 server_name xxx.yyy.zzzz;
 ssl_certificate /etc/nginx/ssl/bundle.crt;
 ssl_certificate_key /etc/nginx/ssl/bundle.key;
 ssl_prefer_server_ciphers on;
 ssl_protocols TLSv1 TLSv1.1 TLSv1.2;
 location / {
             proxy_pass "http://192.168.1.93:8080";
             proxy_set_header Host $host;
             proxy_set_header X-Real-IP $remote_addr;
             proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-For $proxy_add_x_forwarded_for;
             proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-Proto $scheme;
             proxy_buffering off;
             client_max_body_size 500M;
             proxy_connect_timeout 300;
             proxy_send_timeout 300;
             proxy_read_timeout 120;
             send_timeout 300;
          }
  }

server {
 listen 80;
 server_name xxx.yyy.zzzz;
 return 301 https://$host$request_uri;
}

```

**Docker-compose.yml**

```auto
services:
  postgres14:
    build:
      context: .
      dockerfile: postgres14.dockerfile
    volumes:
      - postgres14:/var/lib/odk/postgresql/14
    environment:
      POSTGRES_USER: odk
      POSTGRES_PASSWORD: odk
      POSTGRES_DB: odk
    restart: always
  postgres:
    # This service upgrades from postgres 9.6 to 14.
    # The legacy name must be maintained to allow access to the anonymous volume.
    build:
      context: .
      dockerfile: postgres-upgrade.dockerfile
    volumes:
      - /var/lib/postgresql/data
      - postgres14:/var/lib/postgresql/14
      - ./files/postgres14/upgrade:/postgres14-upgrade
    environment:
      PGUSER: odk
      POSTGRES_INITDB_ARGS: -U odk
      POSTGRES_PASSWORD: odk
      POSTGRES_DB: odk
  mail:
    image: "ixdotai/smtp:v0.5.2"
    volumes:
      - ./files/mail/rsa.private:/etc/exim4/dkim.key.temp:ro
    environment:
      - MAILNAME=${DOMAIN}
      - DKIM_KEY_PATH=/etc/exim4/dkim.key.temp
    restart: always
  service:
    build:
      context: .
      dockerfile: service.dockerfile
    depends_on:
      - secrets
      - postgres14
      - mail
      - pyxform
      - enketo
    volumes:
      - secrets:/etc/secrets
      - /data/transfer:/data/transfer
    environment:
      - DOMAIN=${DOMAIN}
      - SYSADMIN_EMAIL=${SYSADMIN_EMAIL}
      - HTTPS_PORT=${UPSTREAM_HTTPS_PORT:-443}
      - NODE_OPTIONS=${SERVICE_NODE_OPTIONS:-}
      - DB_HOST=${DB_HOST:-postgres14}
      - DB_USER=${DB_USER:-odk}
      - DB_PASSWORD=${DB_PASSWORD:-odk}
      - DB_NAME=${DB_NAME:-odk}
      - DB_SSL=${DB_SSL:-null}
      - EMAIL_FROM=${EMAIL_FROM:-no-reply@$DOMAIN}
      - EMAIL_HOST=${EMAIL_HOST:-mail}
      - EMAIL_PORT=${EMAIL_PORT:-25}
      - EMAIL_SECURE=${EMAIL_SECURE:-false}
     - EMAIL_IGNORE_TLS=${EMAIL_IGNORE_TLS:-true}
      - EMAIL_USER=${EMAIL_USER:-}
      - EMAIL_PASSWORD=${EMAIL_PASSWORD:-}
      - OIDC_ENABLED=${OIDC_ENABLED:-false}
      - OIDC_ISSUER_URL=${OIDC_ISSUER_URL:-}
      - OIDC_CLIENT_ID=${OIDC_CLIENT_ID:-}
      - OIDC_CLIENT_SECRET=${OIDC_CLIENT_SECRET:-}
      - SENTRY_ORG_SUBDOMAIN=${SENTRY_ORG_SUBDOMAIN:-o130137}
      - SENTRY_KEY=${SENTRY_KEY:-3cf75f54983e473da6bd07daddf0d2ee}
      - SENTRY_PROJECT=${SENTRY_PROJECT:-1298632}
    command: ["wait-for-it", "${DB_HOST:-postgres14}:5432", "--", "./start-odk.sh"]
    restart: always
    logging:
      driver: local
  nginx:
    build:
      context: .
      args:
        - OIDC_ENABLED=${OIDC_ENABLED:-false}
      dockerfile: nginx.dockerfile
    depends_on:
      - service
      - enketo
    environment:
      - DOMAIN=${DOMAIN}
      - CERTBOT_EMAIL=${SYSADMIN_EMAIL}
      - SSL_TYPE=${SSL_TYPE:-letsencrypt}
      - SENTRY_ORG_SUBDOMAIN=${SENTRY_ORG_SUBDOMAIN:-o130137}
      - SENTRY_KEY=${SENTRY_KEY:-3cf75f54983e473da6bd07daddf0d2ee}
      - SENTRY_PROJECT=${SENTRY_PROJECT:-1298632}
    ports:
      - "${HTTP_PORT:-80}:80"
      - "${HTTPS_PORT:-443}:443"
    healthcheck:
      test: ["CMD-SHELL", "nc -z localhost 80 || exit 1"]
    restart: always
    logging:
      driver: local
      options:
        max-file: "30"
  pyxform:
    image: 'ghcr.io/getodk/pyxform-http:v2.0.3'
    restart: always
  secrets:
    volumes:
      - secrets:/etc/secrets
    build:
      context: .
      dockerfile: secrets.dockerfile
    command: './generate-secrets.sh'
  enketo:
    volumes:
      - secrets:/etc/secrets
    build:
      context: .
      dockerfile: enketo.dockerfile
    restart: always
    depends_on:
      - secrets
      - enketo_redis_main
      - enketo_redis_cache
    environment:
      - DOMAIN=${DOMAIN}
      - SUPPORT_EMAIL=${SYSADMIN_EMAIL}
      - HTTPS_PORT=${UPSTREAM_HTTPS_PORT:-443}
  enketo_redis_main:
    image: redis:7.2
    volumes:
      - ./files/enketo/redis-enketo-main.conf:/usr/local/etc/redis/redis.conf:ro
      - enketo_redis_main:/data
    command:
      - redis-server
      - /usr/local/etc/redis/redis.conf
    restart: always
  enketo_redis_cache:
    image: redis:7.2
    volumes:
      - ./files/enketo/redis-enketo-cache.conf:/usr/local/etc/redis/redis.conf:ro
      - enketo_redis_cache:/data
    command:
      - redis-server
      - /usr/local/etc/redis/redis.conf
    restart: always
volumes:
  secrets:
  transfer:
  postgres14:
  enketo_redis_main:
  enketo_redis_cache:

```

.env

```auto
DOMAIN=xxx.yyy.zzzz
SYSADMIN_EMAIL=ccccc@gmail.com
SSL_TYPE=upstream
HTTP_PORT=8080
HTTPS_PORT=8443
UPSTREAM_HTTPS_PORT=443

```

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Dr\_Vivek\_Gupta](https://getodk.b-cdn.net/user_avatar/forum.getodk.org/dr_vivek_gupta/32/15988_2.png) [@Dr\_Vivek\_Gupta](https://forum.getodk.org/u/Dr_Vivek_Gupta)\
**Post date:** [June 1, 2024, 6:18am UTC](https://forum.getodk.org/t/unable-to-preview-uploaded-xlsform-on-a-self-hosted-odk-central-installation/46494/11 "2024-06-01T06:18:05Z")

</div>

My error is resolved  
Details are documented here

> [@Enketo not loading](https://forum.getodk.org/t/enketo-not-loading/44122/6):
>
> I have managed to RESOLVE The Error using various suggestions in the forum Step 1: Check reach ability of ODK host to the ODK central website [https://xxx.yyyy.zzzz](https://xxx.yyyy.zzzz) cd ~/central curl -i https://xxx.yyyy.zzzz curl https://xxx.yyyy.zzzz | grep getodk.org Potential issues: The server is host is not able to reach itself due to a. DNS issues: nslookup xxx.yyyy.zzzz You should get the public IP address of the ODK central website xxx.yyyy.zzzz If Not, check reachability to DNS and configura…

Many Thanks to Yankowa, whose post above helped my pin point the error and to Jackson for the help offered

> [@Unable to preview uploaded XLSForm on a self-hosted ODK Central installation](https://forum.getodk.org/t/unable-to-preview-uploaded-xlsform-on-a-self-hosted-odk-central-installation/46494/4):
>
> The output of that command shows that the Enketo container can't reach the Nginx container over the Internet. Usually, this is because there is some internal DNS setting that isn't mapping [yourdomain.com](http://yourdomain.com) to the server. Perhaps your IT team can help.

Best Wishes  
Vivek