First identify which connection is failing: the Bob IDE client reaching Bob services, or a self-hosted Model Gateway on OpenShift reaching its model provider. The first usually points to firewall, proxy, workstation trust, or Bob Shell integration; the second to cluster routing, provider configuration, credentials, or TLS trust. The steps below follow IBM Bob documentation accessed October 3, 2026; IBM’s surfaced pages do not state a precise publication date.
Identify the failing connection
Use the component that reports the error to choose a path before changing settings:
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- Bob opens, but sign-in or service access fails. Troubleshoot the desktop client’s path to Bob services.
- Only Bob Shell integration fails. Check the IDE companion extension and its workspace and terminal setup.
- A self-hosted model is unavailable or inference fails. Troubleshoot the Model Gateway’s path from the OpenShift cluster to the model endpoint, then check the deployment itself.
Errors such as “Unable to connect to Bob services,” “Network request failed,” “Connection timeout,” and “SSL certificate verification failed” are useful clues, but the same broad wording can arise at different network boundaries. IBM’s guidance separates client connectivity from the self-hosted gateway’s upstream model connection.
Troubleshoot the Bob IDE client
Check firewall access to IBM services
Ask the network administrator to confirm outbound HTTPS access on TCP port 443 for IBM’s domains. IBM lists these common allowlist entries: bob.ibm.com, api.us-east.bob.ibm.com, iam.cloud.ibm.com, console-ibm-prod.verify.ibm.com, idaas.ice.ibmcloud.com, www.ibm.com, login.ibm.com, and myibm.ibm.com.
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api.us-east.bob.ibm.com is required in every subscription region: IBM says authentication is centralized in US East. Add the applicable regional endpoints as well: Europe uses *.eu-de.bob.ibm.com and api.eu-de.bob.ibm.com; Japan uses *.jp-tok.bob.ibm.com and api.jp-tok.bob.ibm.com. After a firewall change has been applied, restart Bob and try again.
Configure the required proxy
- Open IDE settings with
Cmd+,on macOS orCtrl+,on Windows or Linux. - Search settings for
proxyand enter the organization’s proxy URL in HTTP: Proxy. Use anhttps://URL if the proxy requires it. - Restart Bob and start a conversation in the Bob panel to test the connection.
IBM says HTTP: Proxy Strict SSL is checked by default. Unchecking it to accommodate a self-signed proxy certificate weakens certificate checking; consult the organization’s security team before changing it.
Separate Bob Shell integration failures
If the IDE itself connects but Bob Shell reports “Bob Shell cannot connect to the IDE” or “Failed to connect to IDE companion extension,” check that the companion extension is installed and available, that Bob Shell and the IDE use the matching workspace directory, and that you are using a supported integrated terminal. In a dev container, check port forwarding for the companion connection.
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Confirm workstation prerequisites without overdiagnosing
IBM lists macOS, Linux, and Windows; an active internet connection; at least 4 GB of RAM (8 GB recommended); and 500 MB of free disk space as installation requirements. These are installation prerequisites, not evidence that a connectivity error is caused by the workstation. For outbound connection failures, IBM directs users to firewall and proxy configuration.
Troubleshoot a self-hosted Bob deployment
Test cluster-to-model access before installation
A model endpoint reachable from an administrator’s laptop may still be unreachable from OpenShift. Before running bobctl install, IBM recommends testing each configured endpoint from a temporary debug pod in the target namespace. For an OpenAI-compatible provider, test the configured base_url and its /v1/models path from inside the cluster. This establishes whether the cluster can route to the endpoint; validate credentials separately before placing them in configuration secrets.
If the provider uses a private certificate authority, check that the supplied CA certificate is PEM-encoded and unexpired, and that it belongs to the endpoint’s trust chain.
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Check operator and Bob resource health
After installation, inspect the operator pods, Bob custom resource, and operator logs:
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oc get pods -n <operator-namespace>and check that all operator pods areRunning. - Run
oc get bob -n <instance-namespace>and check that the Bob resource isReady. - Review operator logs for errors blocking reconciliation or progress.
These checks establish whether the deployment is progressing; they do not by themselves prove that a configured model endpoint is reachable or serving inference.
Check the Model Gateway and loaded models
Inspect the inference pod and its startup logs. IBM documents an in-cluster request to the inference service’s /v1/model/info endpoint as a way to check loaded models, alongside model-list and inference checks in its post-install guidance. If a model is absent from the public model list, first check whether it is configured with exposed: true. A model configured with exposed: false is intentionally omitted from that list and may still be reachable internally.
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Match common errors to the likely layer
Use the error as a starting point, then verify the relevant configuration and logs rather than assuming it identifies the root cause. IBM’s Model Gateway troubleshooting guidance maps common symptoms to these checks:
| Symptom | Checks to make |
|---|---|
Model missing from /v1/model/info |
Check whether exposed: false is intentional. Review startup logs for registration errors and verify the provider’s base_url, model ID, and credentials. |
401 Unauthorized |
Verify the current secret value and confirm the case-sensitive env.<VAR> reference exactly matches the secret key. If you updated the secret without restarting the Inference Service, restart it and retry. Validate the credential separately with the provider. |
502 Bad Gateway or connection refusal |
Test endpoint reachability from the cluster. Check the base URL’s trailing slash, scheme (http or https), and port; then check whether a network policy blocks outbound access. |
| Certificate signed by unknown authority | Confirm ca_cert_pem points to a valid environment variable present in bob.modelGateway.secrets. Check certificate expiry and whether its Subject Alternative Names cover the endpoint hostname. |
Inference Service in CrashLoopBackOff |
Inspect logs from the previous container instance, configuration parse errors, pod events for missing secret mounts, and YAML validity. |
connection refused or no route to host during verification |
Treat this as a model endpoint connectivity failure to investigate from within the cluster, including OpenShift network rules. |
Do not disable TLS verification as a production fix
For client errors involving SSL verification, check the workstation or proxy trust configuration and whether the relevant certificate is valid. For a self-hosted gateway, verify the configured CA reference, certificate expiry, and hostname coverage. Disabling certificate verification may hide a trust problem while removing a security check; it is not a sound production remedy.
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Collect evidence that helps isolate the fault
For a gateway incident, IBM recommends time-bounded inference logs, previous pod logs when a container has restarted, pod descriptions, and namespace events. Review diagnostic output for credentials or other secrets before sharing it. Record the failing host or URL without credentials, timestamp, namespace, pod status, exact error text, recent network-policy or configuration changes, and the relevant log window. For a client issue, include the affected IBM endpoint or proxy path and whether the failure is sign-in, service access, or Shell-to-IDE integration.
Endpoint lists, UI labels, and deployment commands can change. Confirm them against current IBM Bob documentation and your organization’s network policy when applying changes.
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