Embedded Analytics

Solution: Tableau Dashboards Aren't Showing up in Chrome

Encountering an issue with Chrome 80 and an embedded Tableau viz? This blog post discusses the solution and actions to take.

Whitney Myers

Feb 10, 2020 • 6 min read

If you're wondering, "Why is Tableau not working in Chrome all of a sudden," there's a chance that you're encountering an issue with Chrome 80 (the newest Chrome release) and an embedded Tableau viz. Not to worry - there's a fix available. At Zuar, we have certified Tableau consultants ready to help you utilize business intelligence platforms like Tableau so you can answer business questions with data. We’re always on the lookout for solutions to problems like this. This blog post discusses the solution and actions you can (and should) take.

One of our favorite aspects of Tableau is the ability to embed dashboards into web pages, into applications like SharePoint and Salesforce, and even into your own analytics solution. Because it's so quick and easy to deploy, there's a chance one of your colleagues, users, customers have embedded a Tableau dashboard without even telling you.

So, even if you're not seeing this problem, we strongly advise reading Tableau's Knowledge Base article on the problem and taking one of the recommended actions below.

What is Causing Tableau Dashboards to Not Show up on Chrome?

Like other browsers, Chrome is implementing additional security to keep fraudulent traffic at bay. As a result, if there is a difference in site names between a destination site and an embedded component, Chrome flags this as a security issue and will not load the content. So, when attempting to embed a Tableau viz on a page which is not from the same domain as Tableau server, the viz does not load in Chrome 80 or later.

For example:
If Tableau Server is hosted on the domain site.com (or on a subdomain of site.com like mytableauserver.site.com):

Embedded views like my.site.com or my.unique.site.com will load as expected.
Embedded views like my.othersite.com or my.unique.othersite.com will not load.

Please note: for any customers leveraging Zuar Portals, you won't encounter this issue as our portals reconcile site names and SameSite cookies for all browsers on the backend.

What is the solution if I'm not using a Zuar Portal?

As of 2/10/20, Tableau has a few recommendations: running a script to patch Chrome, updating to a maintenance release (that, unfortunately, breaks Safari 12), or downgrading Chrome browsers (which can be tough to implement with all users). Given the impact to Safari and the need to scale a solution for Chrome users, we recommend the first option: download & run a script provided by Tableau and restart Tableau Server.

Before making any changes, you'll want to make sure that SSL is enabled on your Tableau Server, and on any web page that contains embedded views, and to clear all cookies after making the change. Otherwise, the changes will not take effect.

For Server Admins this means: even after you employ the fix, you will still need to advise your users, colleagues, customers, etc to clear their browser cookies.

Details of Option 1: Running a configuration script on versions of Tableau released before January 2020

Linux:

On each node in the Tableau Server cluster

Download the attached script SetSameSiteNone-Linux.sh
Change directory to the directory you downloaded the script to.
Change it to executable: sudo chmod +x SetSameSiteNone-Linux.sh
Run the script to update the Tableau Gateway configuration: sudo ./SetSameSiteNone-Linux.sh

If you do SSL Offloading (SSL on a Load Balancer/Proxy and not on Tableau Server), run the script with SSLOFFLOAD: sudo ./SetSameSiteNone-Linux.sh SSLOFFLOAD

5. Perform a restart: tsm restart

Windows with Tableau Server 2018.2 and newer:

On each node in the Tableau Server cluster

Download the attached script SetSameSiteNone-TSM.cmd
In an Administrative command prompt, change directory to the directory you downloaded the script to.
Run the script to update the Tableau Gateway configuration: SetSameSiteNone-TSM.cmd

If you do SSL Offloading (SSL on a Load Balancer/Proxy and not on Tableau Server), run the script with SSLOFFLOAD: SetSameSiteNone-TSM.cmd SSLOFFLOAD

4. Perform a restart: tsm restart

Windows with Tableau Server 10.4 through 2018.1:

On each node in the Tableau Server cluster

Download the attached script SetSameSiteNone-Tabadmin.cmd
In an Administrative command prompt, change directory to the directory you downloaded the script to.
Run the script to update the Tableau Gateway configuration: SetSameSiteNone-Tabadmin.cmd

If you do SSL Offloading (SSL on a Load Balancer/Proxy and not on Tableau Server), run the script with SSLOFFLOAD: SetSameSiteNone-Tabadmin.cmd SSLOFFLOAD

4. Perform a restart: tabadmin restart

Note: if you apply this workaround and then upgrade to another version older than 2019.4.2, 2019.3.4, 2019.2.8, 2019.1.12, 2018.3.14, 2018.2.17, 2018.1.20, 10.5.23, or 10.4.24 you will need to re-apply this workaround as the configuration file it updates will get re-written during the upgrade. For the listed versions and newer the scripts will no longer be needed.

Why can't I just use the latest Chrome maintenance release?

You absolutely can, but - at the time of writing this (2/10/20) - we're not recommending this approach as the current maintenance release resolves the issues with Chrome 80 but creates the same problem for users in Safari 12. There's a difference in how these two browsers handle the SameSite cookie attribute, so the dev team at Tableau is investigating a fix that will work with both browsers.

I need help now!

If you need help implementing the above fix or would like to handle this - and avoid a myriad of other issues - with a Zuar Portal, don't hesitate to contact us.

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