Query Window in Neo4j Certification Exam Not Working

Graph Academy
1

Hello!

I am trying to take the Neo4j Professional Certification exam, but the query window is not working. At just the intro page, when I copy the command that is suggested in the instructions to start exploring the graph into the query window and hit the run button, the command line clears and no results populate. Given that this is the exam, I should be already connected & have access to the graph. Is this a glitch? Or am I missing a step?

For example, when I hit the circular button with the play icon in the middle, nothing appears in the results part of the query window.

Screenshot 2026-07-23 155806
Screenshot 2026-07-23 155806857×296 11.9 KB

2

I'm also taking Neo4j courses and ran into the same error.

3

@grace.kluender2 @hoanghuan.nagoya

Hi, thanks for reporting this and sorry for the trouble. Unfortunately I can replicate this issue and nothing is obviously wrong, could you help me narrow down whats happening?

If you could work through a few quick checks and let me know what you see, it would help a lot.

No need to do all of these, any information is helpful. Details from developer tools and screenshots really help.

1. Try a tiny query first. In the query window, clear it out, type:

RETURN 1

and hit run. What happens?

  • Nothing appears at all, or
  • A small result appears showing 1, or
  • A result box appears but it's blank.

2. Try a query that returns some data. Now run:

MATCH (n) RETURN n LIMIT 5

When the (empty?) result appears, look just above it for a small Graph / Table toggle. If you see one, click Table. Do rows of data appear when you switch to Table view? (This one test tells me a lot.)

3. When you hit run, does the query "card" appear? That is, does the text of your query drop down into a result area below (just with nothing under it), or does absolutely nothing happen on screen?

4. Check for errors in the browser. Press F12 to open developer tools, click the Console tab, run the query again, and send a screenshot of anything shown in red. Then click the Network tab, run it once more, and let me know if a new request appears when you press run (a screenshot is perfect).

5. Try a different setup. Does it behave the same if you:

  • open the course in a different browser, and
  • open a private / incognito window (which disables extensions)?

6. A few details about your setup:

  • Which browser and version, and which operating system?
  • Are you on a work-managed laptop, a remote desktop, or a virtual machine?
  • Roughly what date and time (and your timezone) did you hit this? Your account email would also let me check our logs from our side.

Thanks again for your patience while we track this down.

4

Hi Martin!

Here are the results of the test queries you requested I run:

  1. RETURN 1: Nothing returns at all, not even a results box. See below.
  1. MATCH (n) RETURN n LIMIT 5
  • Same situation as above
  1. The query card does not appear at all. The only thing that happens when I hit the run button is that the query input text box clears itself.
  2. Below is the screenshot of Google Chrome Console after running query:
    image
    image691×457 36.1 KB
  • I don't see any requests in the Network tab in Google Chrome, but here are the logs from Microsoft Edge:
  • image
    image693×565 37.4 KB

  1. The issue is the same between Google Chrome and Microsoft Edge. It is also the same regardless of a normal tab and an incognito tab.

  2. Browser & OS: tried Google Chrome version 150.0.7871.129 and Microsoft Edge. Microsoft Windows Version 23H2 (OS Build 226631.7376). Work-managed laptop. I ran these tests around 2:15 pm EST on 7/27/2026.

5

@grace.kluender2 Hi, thanks for the detailed answers — they were really helpful in investigating the issue.

I believe your query window can't establish a connection to the database used by the certification, and that this is being caused by network restrictions on your work-managed laptop.

The certification connects to a shared Neo4j server (demo.neo4jlabs.com) on two non-standard ports, and corporate security tools (secure web gateways, proxies, firewalls) often only allow standard web traffic and block these. This matches the "network activity issues" you saw in Edge, and the fact that no request goes out when you press Run.

Crucially though - there's also a bug on GraphAcademy: when the panel can't connect, it doesn't tell you — it just silently does nothing rather than showing an error, which is why it looked like the query simply wasn't running. I am addressing that. Once the fix is in place, when the panel can't connect it will show a message and a link to connect to the database directly, rather than failing silently.

You can connect to the data yourself in the meantime:

  1. Open Neo4j Browser at https://browser.neo4j.io
  2. Connect with:
    • Connect URL: neo4j+s://demo.neo4jlabs.com:7687
    • Username - recommendations / Password - recommendations / Database - recommendations:
  3. Run your Cypher queries there.

To actually get unblocked, though:

  • If possible, try the certification on a personal device or a non-corporate network (e.g. off your work VPN, or a home/guest network) — this is the quickest way to confirm the cause. (Note the direct-connect option above uses the same ports, so it will also need an unrestricted network.)
  • If you need to stay on the managed laptop, your IT team would need to allow outbound access to demo.neo4jlabs.com on ports 7473 and 7687 (TLS), without SSL/TLS inspection.
6

@hoanghuan.nagoya As GraphAcademy currently silently fails if it cannot connect (regardless of the issue) - the root cause of your issue maybe different.

7

@grace.kluender2

I realised that depending on your policy restrictions you might not be able to connect to this either...

8

Hi Martin!

Thank you so much for troubleshooting this for me. I have reached out to IT, but in the meantime, was able to get results from the query window on my personal laptop!

Thanks!

Grace Kluender

9

Hi @grace.kluender2 , We can use Neo4j browser with .env credential, I also faced similar issue but I completed the certification with Neo4J Browser.

10

I have implemented some changes to GraphAcademy.

Firstly, fixing the bug which stopped the query window returning that it hadnt been able to connect.

Secondly (more importantly), query now will try and use the HTTP API over port 443 (avoiding the potentially blocked 7687)