why is FABRIC hard to use?

[Kenneth Calvert]

[Note: I am posting this here to express my frustration with the lack of documentation on FABRIC.  Apologies for brumming.  I would be happy to solve my own problems  if I could just figure out where to find the answers.]

Why is it that if I don’t log in to FABRIC for an extended period, something in my profile disappears, and I can’t do some things, and somebody always has to MANUALLY fix it?  This is at least the fourth  time it has happened.  I am still listed as project owner.  It is not obvious what has changed.

Latest manifestation: I created a slice this morning.  I tried to delete it through the portal by clicking on “My Slices” under my profile.  Result was “we didn’t find any slices”, and two error messages popped up FOR FIVE SECONDS and then disappeared.  I THINK they said something like “unable to obtain tokens, please please re-login and try again”.

Then I tried to re-run the same notebook that created the slice I was trying to delete (one of the 1.9 examples) and it failed with “slice MySlice already exists”.

I have cleared all my FABRIC and Atlassian cookies, to no avail.

Obviously I’m doing something wrong.  What? (I know, I should ask the chatbot.  But I’ve  kind of given up on it since it cannot answer  my detailed questions.)

[Komal Thareja]

Hi Ken,

I’m sorry for the frustration and inconvenience this has caused. You’re absolutely right that there is a gap in our documentation.

The good news is that your credentials and JupyterHub environment are working correctly. The “Slice MySlice already exists” message confirms this. The issue is with the Portal, which failed to obtain a token and displayed an empty slice list instead of an error. I apologize for the confusion. I’m reporting both this issue and the disappearing notifications.

You can delete the slice from JupyterHub using:

fablib.delete_slice("MySlice")

You may also try LoomAI, which provides browser-based slice management as well as AI assisted environment while retaining the notebook interface.

We’ll investigate the recurring account issue and follow up with the cause and a permanent solution. We’re also improving the documentation and chatbot content. If possible, please share the questions the chatbot couldn’t answer—they will help us address these gaps.

Thank you for raising this, and again, I apologize for the inconvenience.

Best regards,
Komal

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