Hi everyone,
We’ve been running into an issue with embedded apps in StoryMaps and wanted to see if anyone else has experienced something similar.
The setup:
- We have a StoryMap that includes embedded web apps (e.g., Experience Builder, Dashboards).
- These apps reference data from services hosted on an external ArcGIS Server (not ArcGIS Online).
The problem:
- When accessing the StoryMap on our internal network, the embedded apps throw a "data is inaccessible error".
- The error does not occur when:
- Accessing the StoryMap off-network.
- Accessing the embedded app directly (on or off network).
- The issue persists across browsers (Chrome, Edge) and even in incognito/private mode.
- It’s not limited to one app type, this happens across all embedded app types.
- Data hosted in ArcGIS Online works fine; the issue only affects services hosted on our external ArcGIS Server.
We believe this could be related to recent changes in Chrome’s handling of embedded iframes and the their Local network access settings. We've had issues recently with staff and their data not loading, which we were able to correct pretty easily - when staff access web maps or apps directly, they sometimes see a Chrome prompt asking to “Allow local network access.” If they click Deny, the app fails to load data but we can fix this by adjusting their Chrome settings later.
However, when the app is embedded in a StoryMap, users never see this prompt, and correcting the setting in Chrome does not resolve the issue for StoryMaps. Our sys admin team was researching this issue and found that Chrome now requires explicit permission for nested iframes to access local network resources. (https://paulserban.eu/blog/post/demystifying-nested-iframes-and-the-allowlocal-network-access-attribute-in-chrome/)
Has anyone else run into this issue with embedded apps in StoryMaps failing to load data when accessed on an internal network? Any insights would be greatly appreciated!
