When an address will not load
Tor is a network of circuits, and "will not load" has several different causes that need different fixes. Work top to bottom, not in random order.
| Symptom | What it usually means | What to do |
|---|---|---|
| "Site can't be reached" or a timeout | The circuit did not reach the service | Wait 30 to 60 seconds and retry. Take a different one of the three addresses; they are equivalent. Build a new circuit (Tor Browser: New Identity). |
| Stuck on the queue screen | First load is slow | Wait. Do not refresh in a loop; the page says so for a reason. |
| "hostname is not valid" or similar | The string is broken: a regular browser, a trailing space, an uppercase letter | Re-copy the full address from the addresses page and paste it cleanly. |
| Works on one device, not another | Different circuits; possible censorship | Enable a bridge (Tor Browser: Settings, Expert). Try a different network. |
| Market loads, but login fails | Password typo or a honeypot field got filled | Check the fields you typed into. This is not an address problem. |
| Nothing works for a long time | The set may have rotated, or the market is busy | A status page would not help here, because it would be reporting a different circuit. Try later, from a different network. |
A note on bridges
Bridges exist for censored networks, where the exit or the path to the guard node is filtered. In Tor Browser go to Settings, Expert, and enable "use a bridge". Whether you need one depends entirely on where you are and what your network allows.
What a failure actually tells you
One address that will not resolve tells you very little on its own, because a bad circuit looks exactly the same as a dead service. If all three fail at once, from several different networks, over a few hours, that is a real signal and one you gathered yourself. Why a published uptime figure would not have helped is in why status badges mean nothing, and for the first steps with a working address, see getting started.