Signing in

Before you start

The add-on signs you in; it cannot sign you up. Accounts are created on the website, and the add-on has no registration form of any kind. If you do not have a Parametra account yet, make one first and then come back to Blender.

Installing the add-on and getting the zip are covered on Requirements & installing. Everything on this page assumes iCity 2 is already installed and the iCity Editor is open.

Signing in

Sign-in happens in your browser, not in Blender. The add-on opens a small server on your own machine, sends the browser to Parametra to take your password, and Parametra sends the browser back to that server with the result.

1. In the iCity Editor header, click Login on the right, beside the preferences and bell buttons.

   signing-in-header-login.png

   The iCity Editor header bar, signed out, right-hand end in frame: the Login button with its user icon, the preferences button and the notifications bell. No account popup open.

   /docs-shots/blender/

2. Your default browser opens at auth.parametra.net. Enter the email and password of your Parametra account there.
3. While Blender waits, the header button turns into a held-down clock with a Cancel button beside it.

   signing-in-waiting.png

   The iCity Editor header during a live sign-in attempt: the depressed clock button and the Cancel button next to it. Capture before the browser completes.

   /docs-shots/blender/

4. The browser tab returns to your own machine and reads Login successful, with the line “You can close this tab and return to Blender.” Close it.

   signing-in-login-successful.png

   A browser tab showing the dark Login successful page served at 127.0.0.1:9876/callback, with the address bar visible so the loopback address reads clearly.

   /docs-shots/universal/

5. Blender reports Signed in as <your email> in the status bar, and the header button becomes the account button.

Once you are signed in, that same header button opens the ACCOUNT dialog instead of starting a sign-in. Its first section names the account you are on and whether the address is verified.

Cancelling an attempt

Click Cancel in the header to abandon a sign-in you no longer want. Press ESC instead if Blender has the keyboard focus — while the browser is in front it does not, which is why the button exists.

Cancelling asks rather than forces. The button reads Cancelling for up to a second while the waiting server notices, then the header goes back to Login. Nothing is saved and you can start again straight away.

If you walk away instead, the attempt gives up on its own after five minutes and reports a timeout. Only one sign-in can run at a time; anything that would start a second one while the first is in flight — the Design composer's Sign In button, the footer flag — refuses with “Login already in progress.”

Staying signed in

Signing in writes a refresh token into a small file in Blender's own configuration folder:

icity2_session.json   (in Blender's user CONFIG folder)

On the next Blender start the add-on redeems that token in the background and you are signed in without a browser opening. It tries again the same way after every file load. If the token has expired or been revoked, nothing interrupts you — the header stays on Login and a line goes to the system console.

After that, tokens keep themselves current: before a cloud call, an ID token within five minutes of expiry is refreshed first. Your plan, credits and organization are read from the server rather than from the token, on their own timer, so a slow connection costs you stale numbers and nothing else.

When port 9876 is blocked

The last step of the handshake never leaves your computer: the browser is sent back to http://127.0.0.1:9876/callback. That local hop is the part that fails most often, and it fails in a way that looks like a password problem when it is not.

Work through these in order:

• —Close every other copy of Blender, then try again. Two Blenders cannot both wait on port 9876.
• —Allow Blender to accept local connections in your firewall or security software. Blender listens on your own machine only, on the loopback address.
• —Check that nothing else on the machine has taken port 9876, and stop it if it has.
• —Try a different browser. The add-on opens whichever one is your default, and extensions or a proxy can rewrite a loopback address.

Signing out and switching account

Open the account button in the iCity Editor header and click the Logout row at the foot of the dialog's left column. The add-on revokes the token with Parametra in the background, deletes the local session file, clears your name, your role and your organization, and reports “Signed out of iCity2.” The same row reads Login when you are signed out, and is the way back in.

To switch account, sign out and sign in again. Signing out in Blender does not clear the browser's own session at auth.parametra.net, so if the browser puts you straight back into the same account without asking, sign out there first and then press Login again.

What changes when you are signed out

Being signed out is a working state, not an error. Draft keeps working against the local engine, and the parts of the add-on that talk to Parametra say so where you would use them.

Once you sign in again the flag turns back into the sync button on its own, and the Design toggle unlocks as soon as the scene also holds a city to dress. What Design then does is covered in Themes; what the cloud runs and what it costs is on What runs in the cloud.