blocksci_parser throws "Error while interacting with RPC" Exception

[PanosChtz]

Having worked around the 20.04 incompatibility issue by setting up a dedicated Ubuntu 18.04 VM for blocksci, I am now facing a different issue.
When I run blocksci_parser, I always get the following error:

Error while interacting with RPC: std::exception
terminate called after throwing an instance of 'BitcoinException'
  what():  std::exception
Aborted

Have tried this with a proper Dash RPC endpoint but I read that many others are facing the same issue as well.
Any workaround for this?