Troubleshooting "accounts.google.com refused to connect" message
If Google can’t authenticate your access to Google Drive for whatever reason, you will be prompted with an error message “accounts.google.com refuses to connect”. This is due to security reasons on Google's end, but there are several reasons why this happens. To resolve this, check the following:
Double-check that you are logged into Google (especially if you are logging in on a different computer, in your web browser's incognito mode, etc.).
Ensure that your Chrome settings are not blocking "Third Party Cookies."
Ensure that no browser extensions are blocking "Third Party Cookies."
In Safari, ensure you have disabled "Prevent cross-site tracking" under Preferences > Privacy > Website Tracking settings.
Does the issue persist after signing into Google and Guru in a different web browser?
Troubleshooting the "you need permission" message
If you run into the "you need permission to access this file" message, this more than likely indicates that you are logged into Google under a different email that does not have access to the file in question. To resolve this, review the file's Share settings in Google Drive and confirm that you are logged into the correct Google account with access to this file.
Troubleshooting 403 error when viewing embedded PDFs from Google Drive
PDFs uploaded to Google Drive operate differently than Google Docs and Google Sheets and require an embed code pasted into the Guru Card rather than the file link pasted into an Iframe block. Check out the instructions for how to embed PDFs stored in Google Drive here.
Still having trouble viewing embedded files hosted by Google?
The below steps require a bit of manual manipulation of the URL for the embed. The steps are slightly different depending on the Google application you are using, but are roughly the same. For this example, we will use Google Docs. Here are the steps:
Take the URL of the file in question from the browser:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/abcdefg/edit#Replace docs.google.com/document with drive.google.com/file
https://drive.google.com/file/d/abcdefg/edit#Remove the edit# portion and any other portion of the URL following:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/abcdefg/Add preview to the end
https://drive.google.com/file/d/abcdefg/previewYour new URL should look like:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/abcdefg/previewCopy this URL and paste it into the Iframe block in your Guru Card. The file should render without issues. Use the slider at the bottom of the iframe to resize the frame.
☎️ Contact us
If you continue to run into trouble viewing embedded content from Google, please don't hesitate to reach out to Technical Support using the widget located at the bottom right of this page. To make troubleshooting as efficient as possible, please share the link to the Guru Card, the link to the file in Google Drive, and a screenshot of the embed with the error message.
📑 Related articles