If your monitor is showing as down but you believe your website or service is actually working, don’t panic. There are several common reasons this can happen, and most are easy to resolve.
Quick Diagnostic Steps
Before diving deeper, try these quick checks:
1. Visit your site yourself – Open your website in a browser (preferably incognito/private mode) to verify it’s actually accessible.
2. Check from multiple locations – Use a service like downforeveryoneorjustme.com to see if others can access your site.
3. Review the error message – Click on the monitor in your dashboard to see the specific error code and message.
Common Causes and Solutions
Connection Timeout
Symptoms: Monitor shows “Timeout” or “Connection timed out”
Causes:
- Your server is responding slowly (taking longer than the timeout threshold)
- Network issues between StatusDrift servers and your site
- Your firewall is blocking our monitoring servers
- High server load causing delayed responses
Solutions:
- Increase the timeout setting in your monitor configuration (Settings > Timeout)
- Whitelist StatusDrift IP addresses in your firewall (see StatusDrift Server IPs)
- Check your server’s resource usage and optimize if needed
SSL Certificate Errors
Symptoms: Monitor shows “SSL Error”, “Certificate expired”, or “Certificate mismatch”
Causes:
- SSL certificate has expired
- Certificate doesn’t match the domain name
- Incomplete certificate chain
- Self-signed certificate (if SSL validation is enabled)
Solutions:
- Renew your SSL certificate if expired
- Ensure the certificate covers the exact domain being monitored (including www vs non-www)
- Install intermediate certificates to complete the chain
- Disable SSL validation in monitor settings if using a self-signed certificate (not recommended for production)
HTTP Error Codes
4xx Errors (Client Errors):
- 401 Unauthorized – Your monitor needs authentication. Add credentials in monitor settings.
- 403 Forbidden – Your server is blocking access. Whitelist StatusDrift IPs or user agent.
- 404 Not Found – The monitored URL no longer exists. Update the URL in your monitor settings.
5xx Errors (Server Errors):
- 500 Internal Server Error – Your server encountered an error. Check server logs.
- 502 Bad Gateway – Issue with your reverse proxy or load balancer configuration.
- 503 Service Unavailable – Server is overloaded or under maintenance.
- 504 Gateway Timeout – Backend server didn’t respond in time to the proxy.
DNS Resolution Failed
Symptoms: Monitor shows “DNS resolution failed” or “Could not resolve host”
Causes:
- Domain DNS records are misconfigured
- Domain has expired
- DNS propagation in progress after recent changes
- DNS provider outage
Solutions:
- Verify your domain’s DNS records using dnschecker.org
- Ensure your domain registration is active and not expired
- Wait for DNS propagation (can take up to 48 hours after changes)
- Contact your DNS provider if issues persist
Content Mismatch (Keyword Monitoring)
Symptoms: Monitor shows down but site loads fine; using keyword monitoring
Causes:
- The expected keyword is no longer present on the page
- Page content changed (redesign, CMS update, etc.)
- Dynamic content that doesn’t always include the keyword
- Content is loaded via JavaScript (StatusDrift checks raw HTML by default)
Solutions:
- Update your keyword to match current page content
- Choose a more stable keyword that’s unlikely to change
- Use a keyword that appears in the static HTML, not JavaScript-loaded content
- Consider switching to HTTP status monitoring if keyword monitoring is unreliable
Checking Monitor History
To understand what’s happening with your monitor:
1. Navigate to Monitors and click on the affected monitor.
2. Review the Event Log to see the timeline of up/down events.
3. Click on any event to see detailed error information including:
- Error code and message
- Response time (if any)
- Monitoring location that detected the issue
- Response headers (when available)
Verifying from Multiple Locations
StatusDrift monitors from multiple geographic locations. If your site is down from one location but up from others, you might have:
- Regional network issues
- CDN configuration problems
- Geo-blocking enabled that’s affecting certain regions
- Regional server/datacenter issues
Check the monitoring location in the event details to identify if the issue is location-specific.
When to Contact Support
Contact StatusDrift support if:
- You’ve verified your site is accessible but monitors consistently show it as down
- You’re seeing errors that don’t match any of the above categories
- Issues persist after whitelisting our IPs and adjusting timeout settings
- You need help interpreting specific error messages
When contacting support, please include:
- Your monitor URL
- The specific error message you’re seeing
- Times when the issues occur
- Any recent changes to your server or DNS configuration