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If Browse AI says “The site blocked the preview,” its help guide says the target website is refusing automated visits. That does not necessarily mean your robot is broken or Browse AI is down. Check whether the task needs visible data, interactions or a login; refresh an expired session if necessary; then follow the route Browse AI documents for the specific error. Some site restrictions cannot be fixed from your side.
What “The site blocked the preview” means
Browse AI describes this preview message as the target site refusing automated visits. Treat it differently from a page that failed to load, a wrong starting URL, missing data points, or an internal preview error; those symptoms may require different troubleshooting. The message alone does not establish a general Browse AI outage or a broken robot. See Browse AI’s guide to choosing between Table Studio, Robot Studio, and the Chrome extension.
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First note the exact wording and whether the failure happens during preview, robot creation, or a run. Do not keep retraining blindly if the site explicitly says it blocked the preview.
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1Repair Windows errors before they cause bigger problems2Scan for outdated or missing drivers - takes under a minute3Clear out junk files and repair common Windows errorsChoose the right Browse AI workflow
| What the task needs | Browse AI route |
|---|---|
| The requested data is already visible on the page | Start with Table Studio. |
| It must click, type, navigate, or log in with a password | Use Robot Studio. |
| Both Table Studio and Robot Studio cannot train the blocked site | Browse AI’s guide says to contact support and points to the Chrome extension as another option. |
These are workflow recommendations, not a guarantee that the website will allow automated access. See the help article on training a robot to scrape or monitor data.
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Refresh an expired login session
For password-protected content, a robot may stop working when its session cookies expire. Browse AI’s failure guide recommends refreshing the session cookies in robot settings and testing again:
- Open the affected robot’s Settings.
- Select Update Session Cookies.
- Refresh the login session as prompted.
- Run a test task and confirm that the robot can reach the authenticated page.
If the site has changed its login flow or security checks, refreshing cookies may not be enough. Browse AI also identifies layout changes, changed loading behavior, new security measures, and temporary site problems as possible causes of robots failing. Its guidance is in What to do if your robot suddenly stops working.
Handle cookie banners without breaking recorded steps
A consent banner that appears only in some locations or changes between visits can interrupt a robot’s recorded actions. If the banner does not cover the data you need, Browse AI recommends leaving it untouched during training rather than recording a click that may not always be present. For account-based pages, use the existing browser session cookies where appropriate. More detail is in Browse AI’s guide to robot failures caused by cookie pop-ups.
Check whether a CAPTCHA is supported
Browse AI says it supports some standard CAPTCHA types, including reCAPTCHA and hCaptcha in some circumstances, but not custom CAPTCHA challenges. Its dedicated CAPTCHA instructions say the “Solve CAPTCHA” feature must be enabled by Browse AI support for specified robots, is available only on paid plans, and works during execution—not while creating a robot in Robot Studio. A challenge during training and an eligible challenge during an enabled run are therefore different situations.
Browse AI’s compatibility guide also warns that stronger bot detection can prevent access, particularly on high-security sites requiring login. It notes that a site may see logins from multiple IP addresses and frequent robot tasks. These limitations do not make proxies, changing IPs, or repeated retries reliable fixes. See How to extract data on a page that has CAPTCHAs and What websites work with Browse AI?.
Retrain or contact support
- If the site layout or loading behavior changed, retrain a custom robot and test it against the current page.
- If authenticated access stopped working, refresh session cookies and test the login first.
- For an explicitly blocked preview, contact Browse AI support; if Table Studio and Robot Studio cannot train the site, its guide also recommends trying the Chrome extension.
- For a prebuilt robot problem, Browse AI recommends contacting support. Contact support as well if a custom robot continues to fail after retraining or needs frequent retraining.
There is no documented fix that guarantees access to every restricted site. Browse AI’s compatibility article, written by Melissa Shires and dated February 20, 2025, claims a success rate of over 90% for newly created custom robots. That is the vendor’s own figure, not an independent measurement, and it does not specifically measure blocked-preview cases.
Or skip the browser setup
If your goal is to capture a page rather than train a data-extraction robot, ScreenshotNeo is a website screenshot API and MCP server. A GET request returns a screenshot or PDF. This one-call example saves a WebP screenshot of Stripe; replace the target URL with the page you want to capture.
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curl -G "https://api.screenshotneo.com/v1/shot" -d access_key=YOUR_API_KEY --data-urlencode url=https://stripe.com -o shot.webpSee the ScreenshotNeo API documentation for setup and options. It accepts cookie or consent banners and removes more than 60 known consent platforms, newsletter popups, and chat widgets before capture; each step can be turned off. Bot checks or CAPTCHAs, blank pages, timeouts, failed loads, and cache hits are not billed, and response headers report the page verdict and billing status. Its MCP server provides take_screenshot, get_page_info, and capture_pdf for Claude, Cursor, and other MCP clients. The free plan includes 1,000 screenshots per month with no card; paid plans start at $5 for 3,000 screenshots. Sign up for ScreenshotNeo’s free plan.
Frequently Asked Questions
Does Browse AI’s over-90% success-rate claim mean my blocked site will work?
No. Browse AI’s February 20, 2025 figure concerns newly created custom robots generally and is a vendor claim; it does not measure access-denied cases specifically.
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