Inaccessible blank "cBioPortal" webpage in Egypt

[Amal Kamal Abdel-Aziz]

Dear cBioPortal Support Team,

I hope this email finds you well.

For several days/weeks I have been trying to login into the website of cBioportal below. However, I continue to receive a blank inaccessible page as below.

I tried everything from erasing cached history to trying Wifi vs. mobile data, laptop vs. old pc vs. mobile, work network vs. home network. My colleagues here in Egypt also have the same problem. 

Could you please help us resolve this issue?

Many thanks 

Kind regards,

Amal Kamal Abdel-Aziz, PharmB, MPharm, PhD

Professor of Pharmacology and Toxicology,

Faculty of Pharmacy, 

Ain Shams University, 

Cairo, Egypt

Email address: AmalAbd...@pharma.asu.edu.eg

[JJ Gao]

Revised draft:

Thank you for reporting this, and I’m sorry you and your colleagues have been running into this for so long. Since you have already tried multiple devices, browsers, networks, Wi-Fi/mobile data, and other colleagues in Egypt see the same blank page, this does not sound like a simple browser-cache issue on your side.

Could you please first try opening this exact URL?

https://www.cbioportal.org/

Please note the www and https.

To help us diagnose where the problem is happening, could you also try opening this page in your browser?

https://www.cbioportal.org/api/info

If it works, you should see a small page of technical text starting with something like portalVersion. If this page works but the main cBioPortal page is blank, that suggests the site backend is reachable but some frontend files may not be loading correctly. If this page also does not work, that suggests a broader network/access issue.

If you are comfortable running a command, this additional test would be very helpful:

On macOS or Linux, open Terminal and run:

curl -I -L https://www.cbioportal.org/

On Windows, open PowerShell and run:

curl.exe -I -L https://www.cbioportal.org/

Please send us a screenshot or copy/paste of the output. A successful response should include something like HTTP/2 200 or HTTP/1.1 200.

Could you also send us:

• Your approximate location in Egypt and internet provider, if you know it
• The browser and device you are using
• The date/time when you tried most recently
• Whether https://www.cbioportal.org/ and https://www.cbioportal.org/api/info behave differently

We will investigate from our side and escalate this as a possible regional access/CDN/network issue. Please do not send any passwords or sensitive login details.

Best,

-JJ

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[Amal Kamal Abdel-Aziz]

Dear JJ Gao,

Many thanks for your kind support ! I truly appreciate it !

I tried what you kindly recommended:

- Using "https://www.cbioportal.org/" ---> I still get the blank webpage

- Using "https://www.cbioportal.org/api/info" ---> I get the strange message below 

{"portalVersion":"v7.0.5","dbVersion":"2.14.5","derivedTableVersion":"1.0.11","genesetVersion":"msigdb_v2025.1.Hs","geneTableVersion":"hgnc_v7_2025.10.7","gitBranch":"67158b173909639ba972bce4aa6df8fd322ae7dc","gitCommitId":"67158b173909639ba972bce4aa6df8fd322ae7dc","gitCommitIdDescribe":"67158b1-dirty","gitCommitIdDescribeShort":"67158b1-dirty","gitCommitMessageFull":"Frontend v7.0.5","gitCommitMessageShort":"Frontend v7.0.5","gitCommitMessageUserEmail":"49543216...@users.noreply.github.com","gitCommitMessageUserName":"Zain Nasir","gitDirty":true}

-On Windows, upon opening PowerShell and running: curl.exe -I -L https://www.cbioportal.org/

This is the message I get: 

"HTTP/1.1 200 OK

Cache-Control: no-cache, no-store, max-age=0, must-revalidate
Content-Language: en-US
Content-Type: text/html;charset=UTF-8
Date: Thu, 23 Jul 2026 08:57:40 GMT
Expires: 0
Pragma: no-cache
Strict-Transport-Security: max-age=31536000 ; includeSubDomains
Vary: origin,access-control-request-method,access-control-request-headers,accept-encoding
X-Content-Type-Options: nosniff
X-Frame-Options: DENY
X-Xss-Protection: 0"

- My approximate location in Egypt is Cairo and the internet provider is WE/Telecom Egypt company 
• The browser and device I am using: I tried Google chrome and Microsoft Edge: both do not work - I am using a HP laptop but also tried my Samsung mobile + old pc.
• The date/time when I tried most recently: July 23rd 2026 - 12 pm - Cairo time
• With https://www.cbioportal.org/  : I get a blank page and with https://www.cbioportal.org/api/info I get the message above. In both cases, I can't see the cBioportal webpage.

Please let me know in case further information is needed.

Many thanks !

Amal 

[JJ Gao]

Dear Amal,

Thank you very much. This information is extremely helpful.

The message you saw at https://www.cbioportal.org/api/info is not an error. It is a normal technical response from the cBioPortal backend, and it tells us that your browser/network can reach the backend service.

Your PowerShell result also shows that the main cBioPortal page is reachable, because it returns HTTP/1.1 200 OK.

Since the backend and main page are reachable but the visible website is still blank, the problem is likely happening when the browser tries to load or run the frontend files used to display the page.

Could you please try one more browser-only test?

Open this link directly in Chrome or Edge:

https://frontend.cbioportal.org/reactapp/main.app.js?2026-07-09T12:10:05Z

If it works, you may see a very large page of technical text, or the browser may download/open a JavaScript file. If it does not work, please send us a screenshot of the error.

If you are comfortable doing one slightly more technical check, this would be even more helpful:

1. Open https://www.cbioportal.org/ in Chrome
2. Press F12 to open Developer Tools
3. Click the Console tab
4. Refresh the page
5. Send us a screenshot of any red error messages
6. Then click the Network tab and send a screenshot of any failed or red requests

Please do not send passwords or login details. The Console/Network screenshots should only show page-loading errors.

[Amal Kamal Abdel-Aziz]

Dear JJ Gao,

Many thanks for your kind support ! We appreciate it.

As suggested:

•  I opened https://frontend.cbioportal.org/reactapp/main.app.js?2026-07-09T12:10:05Z in Chrome and received the message below that "frontend.cbioportal.org" took too long to respond. Similar message with Edge.

 

Please note that I don't have an internet connection problem because I can open other websites as usual.

• Please see below also messages found on Console/Network:

• 
  

After refreshing the page, 

Could you please advise how this could be resolved?

Many thanks 

Amal

[JJ Gao]

Thank you again for your help with testing this. Your earlier result was very useful: the main cBioPortal address and backend API seem to be reachable from your network, but the frontend JavaScript host appears to time out. That likely explains why the page is blank — the browser can reach the initial page, but cannot load the files needed to display the application.

Could you please try opening the following link in Chrome or Edge?

https://master--cbioportalfrontend.netlify.app/

This is a test/development version of the cBioPortal frontend, so it may not exactly match the main public site. We are asking you to try it only as a diagnostic test.

This link uses a different frontend hostname. If it opens correctly, but https://www.cbioportal.org/ still shows a blank page and https://frontend.cbioportal.org/ times out, that would strongly suggest that the issue is related to DNS/CDN/routing/access to the frontend.cbioportal.org hostname from your ISP/network, rather than a problem with your browser, device, or the cBioPortal application code itself.

Please let us know whether this link opens, times out, or shows any error message. A screenshot of the result would also be helpful.

[Amal Kamal Abdel-Aziz]

Many thanks JJ for your kind support !

I tried to open the provided link in Chrome. However, it didn't work and I got the message below. Similar result with Edge.

[JJ Gao]

Hi Amal,

Thanks again for sending us the information. It was very helpful. We are still try to figure out what'd be the best option and will update you.

Best,

-JJ

[JJ Gao]

Would you please try a couple of more things for us?

* first try the main site (https://www.cbioportal.org/) - the issue seems to be related to DNS and sometimes they'll update and fix themselves.

* Then see if https://deploy-preview-5656.preview.cbioportal.org/ work

Thanks,

-JJ

[JJ Gao]

Thank you so much. We'll get back to you soon.

On Mon, Jul 27, 2026 at 6:46 PM Amal Kamal Abdel-Aziz <AmalAbd...@pharma.asu.edu.eg> wrote:

Hi JJ Gao,

Thanks for your kind support.

• As advised, I tried (https://www.cbioportal.org/), but this is still a blank page. 

• I also tried  https://deploy-preview-5656.preview.cbioportal.org/ but it is also not working, please see below. Any idea what to do next?

Amal 

[de Bruijn, Ino]

Hi Amal,

It seems like there is a temporary outage with Netlify hosted websites in Egypt, see e.g. this link

We put up a mirror on Vercel (a different hosting platform):

https://cbioportal-frontend.vercel.app/

Does it work for you? Some functionality might be limited atm (no login)

Best,

Ino

From: cbiop...@googlegroups.com <cbiop...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of JJ Gao <jianji...@gmail.com>
Date: Tuesday, July 28, 2026 at 5:45 PM
To: Amal Kamal Abdel-Aziz <AmalAbd...@pharma.asu.edu.eg>
Cc: cBioPortal for Cancer Genomics Discussion Group <cbiop...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: [EXTERNAL] Re: [cbioportal] Inaccessible blank "cBioPortal" webpage in Egypt

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[Amal Kamal Abdel-Aziz]

Hi Ino,

Thanks for your and JJ's kind support !

I can see the datasets at https://cbioportal-frontend.vercel.app/ but I cannot log in as you mentioned, but definitely better than a blank page !

Thanks again !

 

Amal 

[Amal Kamal Abdel-Aziz]

Hi Ino and JJ Gao,

I hope this email finds you well.

I tried now to use the provided link above (https://cbioportal-frontend.vercel.app). Although I can see the datasets, I cannot do the usual DEG analysis/comparison between two cohorts as I used to do (even without logging in). 

When I assign samples to two cohorts based on the expression of a certain gene and run "compare" between both cohorts, I get the below error message.

Does this mean that I cannot do this type of analysis using that link?

Many thanks

Amal