The most common cause of "Please ensure your computer is connected" is a network or firewall issue.

Please work with your IT department to ensure the following is allowed:

For the MinION, a quick test to see if the issue is your work network is to take your laptop home and see if the MinION is recognised on your home wifi network.

Alternatively, for any sequencing device, you can tether/hotspot your mobile phone to your computer/device.

Refer to the MinION IT Requirements for information on Inbound and Outbound traffic and a list of IP addresses to whitelist.

To set up MinKNOW using a proxy please look at the following FAQ.

Once your proxy is set up and you have whitelisted all the necessary IP addresses, if you are still seeing this message, please follow the below instructions (Windows):

1. Click the Windows start button and type "Internet Options" - run the internet options app from the search results above

2. Click the "Connections" tab above, then the "Lan Settings" button found at the bottom of the dialogue box

3. Tick the "Bypass proxy server for local addresses" check box

4. Reboot the computer.

5. Unplug and replug the MinION into your USB port, and restart MinKNOW.