Valid links shown as broken

Hi @natcornadmin

I hope you’re well today!

Is there any chance you could share an example of such a link with us here (real link that doesn’t validate)?

I would like to check it as there are some cases where reliable check isn’t quite possible (not because of the plugin code but rather because of strict security/access rules “guarding” such link).

This is a case for example with some sites behind CloudFlare or using very strict firewalls and those cause “check” requests made from Broken Link Checker to be rejected by target even though the URL itself does resolve in browser and loads the target site.

I suspect that this might also be the case here but being able to check such links would let me confirm it for sure.

Best regards,
Adam

Hello

Thank you for your response. I am afraid I don’t have details on any examples at the moment, unfortunately, I marked the links as not broken and of course, they are no longer listed.

It does seem likely that there might be a blocking of pings or whatever method you are using to check the links.

I shall write again if the issue occurs again, if that is OK.

All the best, naturally

Keith Gordon
NatCorn
https://www.natcorn.org.uk
Follow us on Twitter https://www.twitter.com/natcorn

I have the same issue. You can view two examples at the bottom of https://river-song.com/mountaineers-snowshoe-class. Both REI links are valid, and both are marked bad. I have another link reported as bad at https://river-song.com/mima-falls-state-park

You can also see several examples on another site https://www.wssda.org/newsroom/daily-eclippings/ (This page changes daily, and we have bad links reported every day, although the links do, in fact, work.)

Thank you.

I too am having the same problem. Here are a few links that show as broken.

https://www.dell.com/support/article/ca/en/cabsdt1/sln295909/miracast-widi-problem-after-connecting-to-a-domain?lang=en
https://www.linkedin.com/company/enhansoft/?viewAsMember=true
https://www.enhansoft.com/sccm-maintenance-tasks

Also Youtube video links show 403 Daily limit Exceeded.

Hi, I encounter the same problem:

Link last checked: February 12, 2020
HTTP code: 0
Response time: 0.000 seconds
Final URL: —-
Redirect count: 0
Instance count: 6

This link has failed 2 times.
This link has been broken for 50 seconds.

Any idea what to check or what logs to inspect? Maybe some server requirements?

Hi!

@eaglesong

Those “REI” links doesn’t “validate” for me too. They are marked with “Timeout” and a click on “details” under the status shows that when requested, the target site didn’t respond within 30 seconds, closing connection. Usually that would mean that the target is down due to some resource issues but it might as well mean that connection was rejected by target, e.g. as “automated traffic” was detected.

@garthmj

The dell link responds with “403 Forbidden” status, the linkedin returns some stats/cookie JS code that cannot be executed by the plugin and most likely that breaks further communication and the enhansoft link is actually really broken – it simply gives 404 status and a visit to that link displays 404 page too.

@seventhqueen

If you would share example link that gives you that status, we could check it but based on the HTTP code that you shared this case might actually be different so I’d suggest that you start a separate thread of your own about it (just please share an example link that causes it) and we’ll assist you further.

Kind regards,
Adam

@wpmudev-support8 I just confirmed that the Enhansoft link is not broken. Literally clicking the link above takes you to the right page. So why do you say it is broken?

As for the Linkedin and Dell links that is fine But when I mark them as not broken they come back again about a week later saying they are broken. How exactly can you mark these so they don’t come back as broken?

@wpmudev-support8 Here is a video (no audio) showing that I click the link above and it is NOT 404 and recheck the same page using the tool and it say 404 but clicking the link doesn’t show that.

[video src="https://www.enhansoftdownloads.com/temp/Brokenlink.mp4" /]

So what am I missing?

Hi @garthmj

I just clicked on this link a few more times, I also tried opening it in another browser – just like in broken link checker it gives me 404 in browser too.

Is it your site so you have access to it’s configuration? Maybe there’s some sort of firewall or “geotargeted” content/lockout that’s causing it?

For comparison, here I’m visiting both “Dell” link and “Enhansoft” link:

https://monosnap.com/file/2MflVu5AMZSbVKwg0hhYiSdDhm3CUE

This actually even more confirms that the issue is with the link itself (target of the link) rather than the plugin as it’s really as simple check – if it gets 404 status from target URL it can’t do much about it.

Kind regards,
Adam

lol, I found the problem. Thank you taking the time to reply. The blog was set to Draft, my bad. I have fix the link to the new post.

However I’m seeing 403 Daily Limit Exceeded. for youtube vidoes. Is there anything that I can do to fix this? Marking them as not broken, doesn’t help as it makes them come back as broken a few days later.

Hi @garthmj

I’m glad to hear that the initial issue is solved for you.

As for “Daily limit exceeded” – this has been an issue in the past and there’s been a change made in recent update to fix it but it seems it wasn’t sufficient. Our developers are already aware of the case and will be looking into it (most likely letting you add your own YouTube API key too).

Kind regards,
Adam