# Why do my OOD "My Interactive Sessions" job cards disappear?

**URL:** <https://ask.cyberinfrastructure.org/t/why-do-my-ood-my-interactive-sessions-job-cards-disappear/4191>\
**Category:** University of Alabama at Birmingham\
**Tags:** ondemand\
**Created:** [March 10, 2025, 6:22pm UTC](https://ask.cyberinfrastructure.org/t/why-do-my-ood-my-interactive-sessions-job-cards-disappear/4191 "2025-03-10T18:22:28Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![wwarr](https://ask.cyberinfrastructure.org/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/w/3be4f8/32.png) [@wwarr](https://ask.cyberinfrastructure.org/u/wwarr)\
**Post date:** [March 10, 2025, 6:22pm UTC](https://ask.cyberinfrastructure.org/t/why-do-my-ood-my-interactive-sessions-job-cards-disappear/4191/1 "2025-03-10T18:22:28Z")

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Why do my OOD “My Interactive Sessions” job cards disappear? Sometimes my job cards disappear from the “My Interactive Sessions” page on Open OnDemand.

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**Author:** ![wwarr](https://ask.cyberinfrastructure.org/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/w/3be4f8/32.png) [@wwarr](https://ask.cyberinfrastructure.org/u/wwarr)\
**Post date:** [March 10, 2025, 6:32pm UTC](https://ask.cyberinfrastructure.org/t/why-do-my-ood-my-interactive-sessions-job-cards-disappear/4191/2 "2025-03-10T18:32:32Z")

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## All Software

- Insufficient storage space in `/data/user/blazerid/` to store new job files.
- Hidden or invisible unicode characters, such as zero-width spaces, in the “Environment Setup” field. To find these characters, use an internet search to find invisible character detectors, or use plain-text-editing software like VSCode. To prevent, avoid copy-pasting from “rich text” sources such as web pages and Word documents.

## Jupyter

- Check for errors or typos in the “Extra Jupyter Arguments” field.
- The directory `<directory>` in `--notebook-dir=<directory>` does not exist or has incorrect permissions. Check permissions at the command line with `ls -ld <directory>`.

## Persistent Issues?

If the issue persist despite checking the above sources, try creating another job, then quickly open the “Session ID” link in the job card, before it disappears. See our [Debugging OOD Job Failures](https://docs.rc.uab.edu/cheaha/open_ondemand/ood_layout/#debugging-ood-job-failures) section for more details.

## Further Reading

- OOD official docs: [Debugging Interactive Apps — Open OnDemand 4.0.0 documentation](https://osc.github.io/ood-documentation/latest/how-tos/debug/debug-interactive-apps.html)

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![ktrn](https://ask.cyberinfrastructure.org/user_avatar/ask.cyberinfrastructure.org/ktrn/32/554_2.png) [@ktrn](https://ask.cyberinfrastructure.org/u/ktrn)\
**Post date:** [March 11, 2025, 7:34pm UTC](https://ask.cyberinfrastructure.org/t/why-do-my-ood-my-interactive-sessions-job-cards-disappear/4191/3 "2025-03-11T19:34:07Z")

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The reason may be environment depended.  
On our cluster, this problem usually occurs when users modifying their `.bashrc` file (located in their home directories) adding some directives that prevents the interactive sessions to start successfully. One example is when the users run `conda init` command which adds a block of directives to the `.bashrc` file.

A user on our cluster can also explore the problems with their OnDemand sessions by finding the corresponding log files in the `ondemand` directory located in their home directory.

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**Author:** ![nucci](https://ask.cyberinfrastructure.org/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/n/f6c823/32.png) [@nucci](https://ask.cyberinfrastructure.org/u/nucci)\
**Post date:** [May 8, 2025, 12:28pm UTC](https://ask.cyberinfrastructure.org/t/why-do-my-ood-my-interactive-sessions-job-cards-disappear/4191/4 "2025-05-08T12:28:52Z")

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If they disappear from the page, it is probably a site policy that automatically removes them after a certain time. At my location, this is 7 days.

The files associated with each card may or may not be in your $HOME/ondemand/data/sys/ directory. This location depends on your local site policy.