Troubleshooting Connectivity Issues within SketchUp

There are a handful of issues that can come up with Online Features in SketchUp; Can't connect to web tools; 3D Warehouse, Extension Warehouse, Add Location and Licensing.

There are a few techniques that may help resolve this issue.

Update your default browser to a modern web browser

SketchUp no longer supports Internet Explorer as it was retired by Microsoft in 2016. The default browsers that work best with SketchUp are Chrome, Safari, and Firefox, as well as the more recent versions of Microsoft Edge. Updating your browser version might help.

Clear browser Cache and Cookies

Clearing the cache and cookies can often help resolve many Internet-related problems. Make sure you do this to the computer default browser, which may not be the browser you use the most.

Adjust the default browser security settings

Custom or higher browser security settings can restrict access to functionality within SketchUp. In your browser security settings, choose a “Medium” instead of “High” security setting to see if that helps.

Check your Internet settings

To check if the computer is connected to the Internet, SketchUp tries to contact www.bing.com. If your network has a Proxy in place that tries to go to another location when contacting www.bing.com, SketchUp may think that the computer isn't connected to the Internet. Similarly, if there are any Firewalls in place that are preventing SketchUp from contacting the Internet, that could be the source of the issue as well. We recommend that you contact your local IT administrator and share this information with that person. They should be able to investigate further to identify the source of the problem.

To address this issue, please open your default browser and go to http://www.bing.com. Once the page loads, now go to http://3dwarehouse.sketchup.com/. When the 3D Warehouse loads, close your browser and open SketchUp. Now try to connect to the 3D Warehouse again from Window > 3D Warehouse You can do this same procedure for the Extension Warehouse.

Alternatively, if you would like to change the URL that SketchUp uses to test connectivity, please ask your IT department to make the following change to your Windows computer:

  1. Open a File Explorer window.
  2. Copy and paste this text into the path field in the File Explorer window: %LocalAppData%\SketchUp\SketchUp 20##\SketchUp\ (replace 20## with your SketchUp version number)
  3. Open the PrivatePreferences.json file with a non-rich-text text editor such as Notepad++.
  4. Locate the line which looks like this: 
    "OnlineTestURL": "",
  5. Change the "" value to a URL that you can reliably contact without any kind of redirect or Proxy interference. This could even be your company's Intranet site. For example:
    "OnlineTestURL": "http://intranet.mycompany.com",
  6. Save the PrivatePreferences.json file.
For Mac users, the equivalent path for the PrivatePreferences.json file is here:
~/Library/Application Support/SketchUp 20##/SketchUp/
(replace 20## with your SketchUp version number)

Clear Windows DNS cache

Sometimes, the Windows operating system stores information about Internet activity. Clearing the Windows cache, can help resolve this issue:

Ensure the proper ports and domains aren't blocked

SketchUp requires uninterrupted access to the internet for features such as the 3D Warehouse, Add Location and Extension Warehouse. To ensure connectivity you may need to adjust settings in your Firewall, Proxy or Internet Security software for your network or computer.

SketchUp needs access on the following ports:
80, 8080, 443.

For network licenses SketchUp also needs ports 5053 and 50530.

If you're uncertain if these ports are open on your machine please contact your network administrator for assistance.

SketchUp needs permission to visit all of the sub-domains for SketchUp.com, easily included as:
*.sketchup.com

Try briefly turning off virus protection and trying again.

Follow the instructions for your specific virus protection solution.

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