workbench: unauthorized errors when trying new features

[jjjermiah]

When running inside a Posit Workbench session (all IDEs), mirai:::posit_workbench_data() errors:

> mirai:::posit_workbench_data()
Error in posit_workbench_get("data", rscript) :
  can only be used from Posit Workbench

However, the RPC cookie is available:

> mirai:::posit_workbench_cookie()
[1] "user-id=<redacted>%3A<redacted>|Tue%2C%2016%20Feb%202027%2017%3A35%3A53%20GMT|<redacted>%3D; expires=Tue, 16 Feb 2027 17:35:53 GMT; path=/; HttpOnly"

looking through the workbench logs:

2026-02-16T18:20:11.571708Z [rserver] WARNING Request contains a user-identifier but is missing the user-list-id cookie required for named user licensing.; LOGGED FROM: std::string rstudio::server::auth::handler::getUserIdentifier(const rstudio::core::http::Request&, bool) src/cpp/server/auth/ServerAuthHandler.cpp:1329

I found the corresponding source code in rstudio/rstudio
but cant tell where the issue is

after going through my browser cookies and finding the user-list cookie, and adding it to the PWB_SESSION_RUNTIME_DIR env variable, this works.

I'm not sure if this feature is not yet open to the public or theres something missing from my side.

Context:

versions from the core node:

$ rstudio-server version
2026.01.0+392.pro5 Workbench (Apple Blossom) for Ubuntu Jammy
$ rstudio-server vs-code-version
2025.08-b22340 PWB with Code: 1.106.0
03419683b7ca4fc8a47d02f5e779eff47230cf60
$ rstudio-server positron-version
Positron: 2025.12.2 build 5
Positron SHA: f5a10d0891cf4de673f8fd2d51f8c883e3cfae9c
Code OSS: 1.106.0
Arch: x64

• running in kubernetes cluster, deployed from helm chart
  • both the core image and session-complete are pretty recent.
• job launchers from IDEs work with no issues

if the diagnostics.txt file from rstudio-server run-diagnostics will help, I can send as well.

[shikokuchuo]

This is a server-side authentication issue. At the moment, I can't say if it's something specific to your Workbench setup or something about "named user licensing" in general - I'm trying to find out.

It's a bit surprising that adding the user-list cookie value to the PWB_SESSION_RUNTIME_DIR environment variable would work? That doesn't seem like an obvious solution to me!

Does the following give any other useful clues:

library(mirai)
daemons(url = host_url())
res <- launch_remote(1, remote = http_config())
res

The response should contain an error message of some sort.

[jjjermiah]

> library(mirai)
daemons(url = host_url())
res <- launch_remote(1, remote = http_config())
res
Error in posit_workbench_get("data", rscript) : 
  can only be used from Posit Workbench
> 

logs from workbench show same error

2026-02-17T16:55:24.505198Z [rserver] WARNING Request contains a user-identifier but is missing the user-list-id cookie required for named user licensing.; LOGGED FROM: std::string rstudio::server::auth::handler::getUserIdentifier(const rstudio::core::http::Request&, bool) src/cpp/server/auth/ServerAuthHandler.cpp:1329

walking through the debugger this happens at this line

mirai/R/launchers.R

Line 98 in fc00d70

data <- if (is.function(remote[["data"]])) remote[["data"]]() else remote[["data"]]

debug: remote[["data"]]()
Browse[2]> n
Error in posit_workbench_get("data", rscript) : 
  can only be used from Posit Workbench

can confirm that using a workbench-created API token works as well

> nanonext::ncurl(
	file.path(Sys.getenv("RS_SERVER_ADDRESS"), 'api', 'get_compute_envs'), 
	headers= c(Authorization = sprintf("Bearer %s", token))
)
$status
[1] 200

$headers
NULL

$data
[1] "{\"result\":{\"clusters\":...

[shikokuchuo]

Thanks for providing all the detail! It seems this may affect Workbench installations with 'named user licensing' - we're looking into a solution right now and will keep you posted.