Issue with Looker MCP Server (built-in) on Claude Desktop

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1

Hello, in my company we are using Looker cloud and we are trying to connect the managed Looker MCP server (no mcp toolbox) with Claude Desktop, I followed the steps in the documentation and checked everything many times but I can’t find what is missing.

After setting up the connector in Claude, clicking on connect correctly opens the consent screen but after allowing the service I get the following error.

Your account was authorized, but Looker MCP returned an error when connecting. You can try again, or check that the server is working. If this persists, share this reference with support:

Has anyone faced this issue or has any hints? As Looker is running on cloud I could not find any error traces or anything else I could inspect to troubleshoot this.

Thanks!

2

That error usually means the OAuth handoff succeeded, but the MCP side rejected something after consent. A few things I’d check first:

  • the Looker user you’re authorizing has the required permissions for the managed MCP feature
  • the instance/host URL in the connector config matches the actual Looker host exactly
  • the feature is enabled for that Looker instance, not just documented/available generally
  • the same Google/Looker identity is being used through the whole flow

Since it is managed Looker, you probably won’t get useful server logs yourself. If those checks all look right, the reference code from that error is probably the thing to send to Looker/Google support.