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Troubleshooting ​

Fixes for the problems people run into most. For error responses, see Errors.

Try your request in the playground first. You see the result right away and can change options until it looks right. The request log shows every request with its options, status and error.

I get the same screenshot although the page changed ​

The result came from the cache. Identical requests return the stored result for 24 hours. The response has the header X-Cache: HIT and the status 200.

  • With a plan or credits, send cache=0.
  • On the free plan, change the request, for example by adding a query string to the URL.

The screenshot is blank or content is missing ​

The capture starts once the page fired its load event. Pages that load their content with JavaScript after that are captured too early.

  • Send wait_for_selector with an element that appears once the content is there, for example .article-body.
  • Or send wait_until_network_idle: true.
  • Or add a delay in milliseconds. Free accounts can wait up to 2,000 ms.

Raise timeout when you add waits. The timeout covers loading and waiting, and is 10 seconds by default.

Images further down the page are missing ​

Many pages only load images once they scroll into view. The browser doesn't scroll the page before the capture, also not with full_page. Add wait_until_network_idle: true and a delay, or ask the site to load images without lazy loading for your requests, for example with a query string.

A cookie banner or a popup covers the page ​

  • Block the script of the banner with block_domains, for example ["cdn.cookielaw.org"]. Check the network tab of your browser for the domain.
  • Or set the cookie the banner sets once accepted, with cookies.
  • dismiss_dialogs only closes JavaScript alert, confirm and prompt dialogs. It doesn't close banners built with HTML.

The page shows a bot check, a CAPTCHA or "Access denied" ​

screeenly doesn't get past bot protection. If the site shows a challenge to a browser without cookies, the screenshot shows the challenge. If it's your site, allow requests with the user agent Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; screeenly/3.0; +https://3.screeenly.com/ua).

The page needs a login ​

  • Send the session cookie with cookies.
  • Send a token in a header with http_headers.
  • Use basic_authentication_username and basic_authentication_password for HTTP basic authentication.

If none of these work, render the page in your app and send the HTML with html.

The page is on localhost or in a private network ​

screeenly loads pages from its own servers, so it can't reach localhost, 127.0.0.1 or pages in your network. You get We can't reach ... or net::ERR_NAME_NOT_RESOLVED. Make the page public, or send its HTML with html.

Fonts, images or styles in my HTML are missing ​

HTML you send has no base URL. Relative paths such as /css/app.css don't load. Use absolute public URLs (https://example.com/css/app.css), or inline the CSS and embed images as data: URLs. References to file://, localhost and 127.0.0.1 are rejected.

Web fonts load over the network. Add wait_until_network_idle: true or a short delay so they finish loading.

The page has the wrong language or shows a cookie wall for another country ​

The browser language defaults to en-GB. Set browser_language, for example de. Pages are loaded from servers in the United States and in Germany. Sites that pick content by location may show the version for one of these countries.

The screenshot is cut off, or has the wrong size ​

  • Without window_width and window_height, the window is 800 × 600 pixels.
  • full_page captures the full height. The width still comes from window_width.
  • Chrome can't capture images higher or wider than 16,384 pixels. Full page screenshots of very long pages can come back cut off or blank.
  • On the free plan, the window is at most 1,920 × 1,080 pixels.

The PDF looks different from the page ​

PDFs use the print styles of the page. Set css_media_type: "screen" to use the styles you see in the browser. Use paper_format and paper_margins_* to change the page size and margins.

The request times out ​

  • Raise timeout. It's 10 seconds by default, up to 15 seconds on the free plan and 60 seconds with a plan or credits.
  • Check that wait_for_selector matches an element that appears on the page.
  • Use block_domains to skip slow third-party scripts.
  • Set the timeout of your HTTP client to at least 90 seconds.

Requests that time out count toward your monthly usage.

Still stuck? ​

Email [email protected] with the request ID from the X-Request-ID response header.