Cannot connect to Scope remote inference

[dmtelf]

Summary

I am not on VPN + I start up Scope. I go straight to remote inference + enable it then I sit waiting for a long time while it attempts to connect. I have tried many times today & have not been able to connect.

The only error in the logs is this 1 line - 2026-03-17 15:33:02,780 - scope.server.cloud_connection - ERROR - Background cloud connection failed: Timeout waiting for 'ready' from cloud server. The cloud runner may be starting up (cold start can take 1-2 minutes).

UPDATE: While gathering information for this bug report, I tried again + it connected. It should have connected the first time I tried it.

Platform

Windows 10, 48Gb RAM

Nvidia GPU

3070 8Gb

Scope Version

0.17 app

uv Version

0.7.19

node Version

22.17.0

[livepeer-tessa]

Thanks for the report! The underlying issue is a cold start on the cloud runner that took longer than expected — the auto-retry mechanism (3 attempts × 3 min each) should catch this, but clearly it didn't here.

I've opened PR #708 with two improvements:

1. Live progress feedback: The status text now updates every second during the cold start wait (e.g. "Starting cloud server... (45s)") so you can see something is actually happening instead of it looking frozen
2. More retries + progressive delays: Increased from 3 → 5 attempts with delays that ramp up (5s → 10s → 15s → 20s between retries), giving the runner more chances to warm up before giving up

The fact that it eventually connected while you were writing the report suggests the runner just needed more time than the 3-attempt window allowed.