An exchange won’t connect

Why an exchange can stay on Connecting, say No reply or Couldn’t load, or turn you away, and what you can do about each.

ExchangesAExchange ALiveBExchange BLiveCExchange CConnectingNo replyDExchange DCouldn't loadSome exchanges may not connect due to georestrictionsWhy?
The exchange switch with four exchanges on: two Live, one Connecting until it says No reply, and one that Couldn't load. At its foot, the note that some exchanges may not connect, with its link. A drawing, not a real screen.

Your browser connects to each exchange itself, so whether one answers depends on where you are and what lies between you and it.

What each state means

  • Connecting that never ends, or No reply: your browser asked, and the exchange didn’t answer.
  • Couldn't load, in the exchange switch: the site’s own code for that exchange didn’t arrive. Switch it off and on again to try again.
  • Reconnecting, over and over: the connection opens, then drops. Prices are late, greyed or missing covers that.

Why it happens

  • Where you are. The switch’s note says it: “Some exchanges may not connect due to geo restrictions”. Some exchanges turn away visitors from some countries, or serve only some.
  • An ad blocker or a privacy extension. Some block the addresses exchanges send their prices from. Allow this site in it, or try a window without extensions.
  • A VPN, or an office or school network. Its firewall, or the country a VPN puts you in, can stop a connection.

The site doesn’t try to get round a refusal: an exchange that turns your browser away stays off the page, and the rest of the page works without it.

Turned away on the futures and options pages

There, a note under the tables names an exchange that refused your browser, as one that “refuses visitors from your location”, with the code it answered with (HTTP 451 or 403): it doesn’t serve where it takes you to be. An exchange that didn’t answer at all gets a note too. Its figures stay off the page until it answers.

Telling the site

On a coin’s spot or perpetuals page, add ?debug to the address, as in /btc?debug, and Connection diagnostics appears at the foot of the page: how each exchange’s connection has behaved. Nothing in it is sent anywhere. Report it from that page with what it shows, and say whether you use a VPN or an ad blocker.

Related articles

  • Prices are late, greyed or missing

    When an exchange goes quiet, the pages grey its prices, then take them off the table, rather than show an old price as new. Here’s when that happens, and why.

  • What the labels, dots and colours mean

    Every word and dot the pages put beside an exchange or a price, and the rule behind each one: Live, Behind, No reply, Thin, Low volume, Quote, Closed and the rest.

  • Report a wrong number or a problem

    Report a wrong number, in every page’s footer, starts a post to @coinsmash_ on X with the page’s address in it. Send it from the page that’s wrong, and say what you saw.

Still stuck?

Report a problem or send Feedback & feature requests: each starts a post to @coinsmash_ on X, which you can change before you send it, or not send at all.

The site never messages you first, and never asks for keys, seed phrases, passwords or money.