Very upset with neo4j testing
Volodymyr Kepsha
I installed Neo4J locally and I was very exited to test it out. But I spent the whole day trying to set it up and it still does not work. The are numerous error with some passwords and accesses.
So when I create a new database in Neo4j Desktop, it asks me to provide a password. Than when i try to connect to it Im getting error.
I though that it could be a perfect solution for a project, but so convoluted that after 10h of try and error I still didn't succeed to created an empty DB locally.
Just as a reference, to install and deploy mongoDB it takes up to 15 min. Very disappointed.
PS: it looks cool that you have already 5-th version, but when I google for an issue, I can found solutions for 2,3,4-th version that are outdated. Very upsetting.
Gregory King
Hey Volodymyr, really sorry you're having these issues. Would you be open to spending 20 mins talking through them?
I'll drop you an email to see if we can work out a time to talk.
Volodymyr Kepsha
Gregory King: Let me describe the steps I took when I tried to test Neo4j locally.
As a regular Linux user, I installed Neo4j using the apt-get install command as recommended in the DigitalOcean installation tutorial. The installation went smoothly, as did deploying Neo4j.
The next step was to connect to http://localhost:7474/browser to see the UI. This is where I began encountering issues. The page was not avaliable and yes I used Google Chrom. I couldn't access the link, even though when I used curl on this link http://localhost:7474, I received a meaningful response. I spent hours on Google trying to find a solution, but most of the answers on StackOverflow and your forum either didn't work or were outdated.
I then decided to install Neo4j Desktop to have some access to the UI. I downloaded the AppImage and successfully ran the application. However, things started getting complicated. I tried experimenting with a movie database, but immediately ran into issues with the ports. A message popped up saying, "ports 7474 and 7687 (if I'm not mistaken) are occupied, do you want to use some other ones?" I chose alternative ports. Only an hour later did I realize that the database I installed manually was still running, and the Neo4j Desktop had deployed its own instance. This is ridiculousm. I shut down the manually-installed Neo4j instance and continued with the desktop version.
Another issue, which was rather frustrating, was the password prompt. Every time I tried to deploy the movie database, I encountered the message, "Local Graph password has been changed. Please enter Graph password", even though I hadn't set any password initially. Online searches suggested that the default password was "neo4j". However, when I entered that, I received a message saying "this password is not allowed". It was exasperating since this password seemed to be blocked, despite most online sources suggesting it's the default one. There was an "ignore" option which I attempted to use, but I'm still unsure about its functionality.
And here Im comming to the last issue where I just gave up. I thought if I couldn't work with the movie database, I'd create a new one. After creating it and facing another password prompt, which I just ignored, since there is such button, I was met with an authentication window when I tried to open the database. Even after trying every password I could think of, I received the error: "ServiceUnavailable: WebSocket connection failure." Online solutions pointed towards certificate issues. At this point, I gave up. I had hoped for a simple experience with the graph DB, but I spent an entire day trying to get it running locally. I saw claims on your website about it being easier than SQL. However, in my experience, it took me just 30 minutes to set up and start experimenting with a MySQL database.
On a positive note, I had no issues with Neo4j Aura. I experimented with it, but there was no test movie database available, so I had to input my own data.
Volodymyr Kepsha
Gregory King, let me know if you were able to recreate the issue. Im still planning to test neo4j on a local server, but I still have this issue.
"ServiceUnavailable: WebSocket connection failure."
Volodymyr Kepsha
although neo4j aura works more less ok.