What should I do when I get the error message ‘Illegal Institution – Please try again’ when trying to access library resources via Explore?

Answer

The issue seems to be linked to the Zotero proxy and we recommend taking the follow steps:

1. Right-click on the Zotero Connector extension icon and the select Options and then Connector Preferences. 

2. You should then see a Proxies tab on the left https://www.zotero.org/support/connector/preferences/proxies.

3. You should see libproxy.ucl.ac.uk in the list of configured proxies. We don't want to delete this but further down the page you should see a list of hostnames that are being proxied and we want to remove references to ExLibris / Primo - it's probably just ucl.primo.exlibrisgroup.com.

If you continue to experience the issue after following these steps please contact the library for additional support.

You can also find more information about using Explore via this user guide.

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  • Last Updated Apr 27, 2026
  • Views 20
  • Answered By Nick (Help Services)

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