Guide Errors & Troubleshooting

How to fix "This site can't be reached"

One heading covers several completely different faults — here is how the small print underneath tells you which one you actually have.

iFastHosting Support Team Updated 26 August 2026 6 min read Beginner

"This site can't be reached" is Chrome's generic heading for an entire family of unrelated failures. It is not itself a diagnosis, and troubleshooting it as though it were one — trying every fix for every possible cause in turn — wastes time the small print underneath the heading could save you immediately.

Below the headline, in smaller text, Chrome always shows a specific error code. That code is the actual message. The table below maps the common ones to what they really mean and where to go next.

Code shown underneath	What it actually means
`DNS_PROBE_FINISHED_NXDOMAIN`	DNS has no record at all for this domain — see ERR_NAME_NOT_RESOLVED
`ERR_CONNECTION_REFUSED`	A server answered and actively rejected the connection — see ERR_CONNECTION_REFUSED
`ERR_CONNECTION_TIMED_OUT`	Nothing answered at all within a reasonable time; the request went nowhere rather than being refused
`ERR_ADDRESS_UNREACHABLE`	Your own network has no route to the destination address, often a local network or VPN configuration issue
`ERR_NAME_NOT_RESOLVED`	Same underlying cause as DNS_PROBE_FINISHED_NXDOMAIN, worded slightly differently by version
`ERR_INTERNET_DISCONNECTED`	Not the website at all — your device currently has no working internet connection

Reading the code correctly

In Chrome, the code sits directly under the main heading on the error page itself. If you don't see it immediately, it is still there — look for a line of capitalised text starting with ERR_ or DNS_PROBE_. This single line is worth more than any general troubleshooting checklist, because it tells you which of several entirely different problems you're actually dealing with before you touch anything.

The two things worth ruling out regardless of the code

1. It might not be the site — check your own connection first

Confirm other websites load normally in the same browser. If nothing loads anywhere, this has nothing to do with the site you were trying to reach — it's a general connectivity problem on your device or network, and ERR_INTERNET_DISCONNECTED is the most direct sign of that specific case.

2. Check whether it's down for everyone, or just for you

A site that fails for you but loads normally for someone else on a different network points at something local — your DNS cache, your network, a VPN, or a filter. A site that fails consistently from multiple unrelated networks points at the domain or the server. See how to tell if a site is down for everyone for a proper way to check this rather than guessing from a single test.

What other browsers call the same thing

The generic heading and the underlying causes are the same everywhere; only the wording on screen differs by browser, which matters if a visitor reports the problem to you using different words than you'd expect.

Browser	What it shows
Chrome	"This site can't be reached", with the `ERR_` or `DNS_PROBE_` code underneath
Firefox	"Hmm. We're having trouble finding that site." or "Unable to connect", with a shorter explanation rather than a code
Safari	"Safari can't find the server" or "Safari can't open the page because the server stopped responding"
Edge	Effectively identical to Chrome, including the same `ERR_` codes, since both share the same underlying engine

Firefox and Safari's plainer wording is less immediately useful for diagnosis than Chrome or Edge's error code, which is one good reason to reproduce the problem in Chrome specifically if it's available, purely to read the more specific code it provides underneath the same generic heading.

Working through it methodically

Read the exact code under the heading
Match it against the table above before doing anything else — it narrows the problem from "the whole internet is broken" to one specific, testable cause.
Test from a second network
A phone on mobile data with Wi-Fi turned off is the fastest independent test available. If the site loads there, the fault is local to your first network.
Query DNS directly
Run nslookup yourdomain.com or dig yourdomain.com from a terminal. This bypasses your browser's own cache and shows you exactly what DNS is currently answering with.
Check the domain's own status
Confirm the domain hasn't expired and that its nameservers are the ones you expect, directly in your registrar or hosting account rather than assuming from memory.

Don't restart the router before reading the code

It is a common first instinct and it does sometimes help with a stale local DNS cache, but it fixes nothing for a domain that has genuinely expired or a server that is genuinely down — and it costs you the diagnostic information the error code was giving you for free.

If the specific code doesn't lead anywhere

Send us the exact code shown under the heading, the domain, and whether it fails from more than one network. Those three details point straight at the relevant guide, or straight at support checking the server side directly if none of the usual causes apply.

Frequently asked questions

Why does Chrome show one generic message for so many different problems?

Because the heading is deliberately non-technical, aimed at the widest possible audience. The specific reason always sits underneath it in smaller text, in the form of an error code such as ERR_CONNECTION_TIMED_OUT — that code, not the headline, is what identifies the actual fault.

Does this mean my hosting is down?

Sometimes, but far from always. This page appears for DNS failures, expired domains, local network problems and browser-side issues just as often as for an actual server outage. Reading the specific error code underneath the heading is what tells you whether hosting is even a plausible cause before you go looking there.