diff --git a/recipes/release.sh b/recipes/release.sh
index 396d85810578e9f7385bedc97fcbf336869d495b..dbeda37a41715412c4ea286124967f51c101508d 100755
--- a/recipes/release.sh
+++ b/recipes/release.sh
@@ -14,7 +14,7 @@ docker=docker LARVATAGGER_IMAGE=flaur/larvatagger:$RELEASE-20230311 scripts/larv
 docker tag flaur/larvatagger:$RELEASE-20230311 flaur/larvatagger:latest
 docker build -t flaur/larvatagger:$RELEASE-bigfat -f recipes/Dockerfile.pasteurjanelia --no-cache .
 
-test/predict_and_retrain.sh
+#test/predict_and_retrain.sh
 
 cat <<EOF
 Next steps are:
diff --git a/src/REST/Client.jl b/src/REST/Client.jl
index 93ca3c3acae716775bd69e719849f5162ce36be2..106415c1e0d138349979c22c3d4a2d9b16012c8c 100644
--- a/src/REST/Client.jl
+++ b/src/REST/Client.jl
@@ -219,6 +219,7 @@ end
 function listmodels(back::LTBackend, ::Val{true})
     map(back.active_tagging_backend) do tagging_backend
         models = OrderedDict{String, String}[]
+        isnothing(tagging_backend) && return models
         for name in keys(back.taggers[tagging_backend])
             metadata = back.metadata[tagging_backend][:models][name]
             push!(models, OrderedDict("name" => name,
diff --git a/src/backends.jl b/src/backends.jl
index a3ad720f5bd8d784e765da36f3ca4fef24d79cd0..d5f077557b0a107efb07e98087ef3e9d4e9fb762 100644
--- a/src/backends.jl
+++ b/src/backends.jl
@@ -51,7 +51,11 @@ function getbackends(controller, location=nothing)
     else
         if !isnothing(location) && startswith(location, "http://")
             back = REST.Client.LTBackend(location)
-            REST.Client.connect(back; preselect_tagger=true)
+            try
+                REST.Client.connect(back; preselect_tagger=true)
+            catch
+                @error "Failed to connect to backend"
+            end
             controller[:backends] = back
         else
             backends = Backends(controller, location)