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PixieBrix Documentation
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Troubleshooting Network Errors

What are Network Errors?

Network Errors are errors that occur when transmitting your request from Google Chrome to the target server.

Because network errors occur between Google Chrome and the remote server, the specific error is not made available to PixieBrix.

The error message PixieBrix displays if a network request from a mod could not be completed.
The error message PixieBrix displays if a network request from a mod could not be completed.

Identifying/Fixing Network Errors

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If you are familiar with the Chrome Developer tools, skip to the “Viewing the Chrome Network Error Log for Details” Section to more efficiently debug network errors.

Network Errors have numerous possible root causes, each with its own solution. This section catalogs the error causes we’ve seen, and how to diagnose/solve them.

You have no Network Connection

Verify that your computer is connected to the network and that your connection is stable.

The requested URL does not exist

Double-check the URL PixieBrix used to make the request.

In Page Editor’s Data Panel > Output Pane, scroll to the Request Configuration and confirm the URL:

Viewing the URL from the Network Error in the Page Editor’s Data Panel > Output Pane
Viewing the URL from the Network Error in the Page Editor’s Data Panel > Output Pane

Verify for the requested URL that:

  • The requested URL is correct
  • The requested URL exists
  • The host is reachable from your browser

The server took too long to respond (the request timed out)

Try the request again. If additional requests still fail, verify that the server is:

  • Not overloaded, and
  • Responding to other requests (e.g., try a different API endpoint)

The requested URL is only available via Enterprise VPN

If you use an enterprise VPN, ensure that your VPN is connected before making the request.

When switching a VPN on/off, Chrome may continue to use the stale connection information for a period of time.

You can force Chrome to re-fetch the server information by:

The browser blocked the request because the HTTPS certificate on the server is invalid/untrusted

Try visiting the host in Chrome’s URL toolbar.

In Google Chrome, when you visit a URL with an untrusted HTTPS certificate (e.g., self-signed), Chrome will display a warning:

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For websites, you can bypass the certificate warning by clicking “Advanced” and “Proceed…”. However, clicking “Proceed” does not enable API requests from Browser Extensions to the URL.

In order to enable PixieBrix to call hosts with untrusted certificated, you must instruct Chrome to trust the certificate.

An Enterprise Firewall blocked the request

If you use an enterprise firewall (e.g., ZScalar), contact your Enterprise IT department to ensure that requests to the server are allowed.

For more information on configuring firewalls, see:

Uncommon: another browser extension (e.g., Adblocker) blocked the request

Verify your Adblocker and other extensions are configured not to block requests to the target URL. To do so, you could temporarily disable your Adblocker and/or other privacy extensions.

Uncommon: your Enterprise Chrome IT disallows requests to the host via runtime_blocked_hosts

Contact your Enterprise IT department to have them enable network calls from PixieBrix to the requested host.

Uncommon: Chrome does not detect an Internet Connection but your Internet is working

If you see notifications about PixieBrix being disconnected from the internet AND no responses API calls getting through (but you have working internet), please close and restart your Chrome browser.

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Viewing the Chrome Network Error Log for Details

For security, PixieBrix makes all requests to 3rd party API servers from the extension’s background page.

To find the cause of the Network Error, open the browser’s developer tools for the background page:

  1. Visit chrome://extensions/ in your Chrome browser
  2. Enable Developer mode, if not already enabled
    3. image
  3. Click the “background page” link on the PixieBrix entry
    4. image
  4. View the Network Tab. The Network request table will be blank — Chrome only logs networks request after the Network tab has been opened
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  5. Retry the Request in the Page Editor
  6. Click on the failed request in the Network Request Table, and find the entry for the failed request:
    7. The DevTools Network Pane showing ERR_NAME_NOT_RESOLVED for a bad URL
    The DevTools Network Pane showing ERR_NAME_NOT_RESOLVED for a bad URL
  7. See the status code in the Status column, and lookup information on how to solve the error. See the “Google Chrome Connection Error Messages” Section below
  8. Click on the request to verify the request details. Click “Headers” to verify the provided headers and “Payload” to verify the provided payload
    9. Viewing Header and Payload details for a failed request
    Viewing Header and Payload details for a failed request

Google Chrome Connection Error Messages

See Chrome’s Fix connection errors documentation for fixing specific error messages: https://support.google.com/chrome/answer/6098869?hl=en

Additional Troubleshooting Tips

Verify the request works in Postman or another API Client

Download a free API client such as Postman, and verify the request works from that client.

If the request works in the API client but does not work in PixieBrix, generally one of the following situations is occurring:

  • The URL or headers are configured differently. See the “Viewing the Chrome Network Error Log for Details” Section on how to verify the exact headers that the Chrome Browser is sending
  • The HTTPS certificate is self-signed/not trusted. Postman has different controls for trusting certificates than Google Chrome.
    • Try the steps in “The browser blocked the request because the HTTPS certificate on the server is invalid/untrusted” Section above.
    • View the Chrome Network Error log to see if a NET::ERR_CERT_* network error is being generated when running the request in PixieBrix.

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