Context

Conduktor Desktop gives the option of being able to run a Kafka cluster directly from it, to be able to carry out some ad-hoc testing, or for those newer to Kafka to get started.

This can be accomplished by following the screenshots below.

On this window, click on "Start local Kafka cluster".

Then select your options.

And you just have to wait for a few seconds.

The error

However, what happens if you get an error during this process?

You may have an error that reads something like this:

The download failed for obscure reasons: sttp.client3.SttpClientException$ReadException: Exception when sending request: GET https://releases.conduktor.io/kafka_oss_3-1-0 io.conduktor.jumpstart.domain.JumpStartError$IOError: sttp.client3.SttpClientException$ReadException: Exception when sending request: GET https://releases.conduktor.io/kafka_oss_3-1-0

or

Zookeeper failed to start (timeout). Please try again. io.conduktor.jumpstart.domain.JumpStartError$ProcessStartingTimeout at io.conduktor.jumpstart.ZookeeperLiveProcess.$anonfun$waitZkReady$1(ZookeeperProcess.scala:116) at zio.ZIO$.$anonfun$fail$1(ZIO.scala:2898) at zio.internal.FiberContext.evaluateNow(FiberContext.scala:411) at zio.internal.FiberContext.$anonfun$evaluateLater$1(FiberContext.scala:785) at java.base/java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor.runWorker(Unknown Source) at java.base/java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor$Worker.run(Unknown Source) at java.base/java.lang.Thread.run(Unknown Source)```

Explanation

For Conduktor's Jumpstart feature to work it needs access to download a Kafka binary from https://conduktor-jumpstart.s3.fr-par.scw.cloud/kafka-3.1/oss/kafka_2.13-3.1.0.tgz where it is stored.

This is stored in S3 which allows you to download the Kafka binary version chosen directly to your own machine.

Sometimes, there may be a problem downloading that file due to a proxy or VPN that you may be using on your network, or a certificate that may be missing.

Solution

First, you must download https://conduktor-jumpstart.s3.fr-par.scw.cloud/kafka-3.1/oss/kafka_2.13-3.1.0.tgz and see if you are experiencing the same error.

If it works, then you can move the content of the zip in Users/your-user/Library/Caches/conduktor/jumpstart, like this:

If it doesn't work, it is likely you'll need to add proxy settings and/or a certificate to Conduktor Desktop, please see further information on this here.