- By Shivangi Sharma
- Tue, 18 Nov 2025 08:15 PM (IST)
- Source:JND
Cloudfare Outage: A widespread outage at internet infrastructure giant Cloudflare caused disruptions across the globe on Tuesday, locking users out of popular websites and services with a confusing error message. Visitors to sites like ChatGPT, X, and Bet365 met with alerts stating, "Please unblock challenges.cloudflare.com to proceed" or the more alarming "Sorry, you have been blocked."
The issue, which began around 6 am ET, was tracked by outage monitors and confirmed on Cloudflare’s own status page. The company reported service degradation, including widespread "500" errors and API failures. The incident highlighted the web's reliance on a few critical service providers, as a single point of failure at Cloudflare rippled across countless platforms.
What Is 'Unblock Challenges.cloudflare.com'
The cryptic message seen by millions is a symptom of a broken security handshake. Cloudflare acts as a protective shield for websites, using a domain called challenges.cloudflare.com to perform security checks before granting a user access. This process, which often runs invisibly in the background, verifies that a visitor is a real human and not a malicious bot.
During the outage, this system malfunctioned. The domain responsible for serving these security challenges itself became inaccessible or unresponsive. Consequently, users were trapped by the very mechanism designed to protect them, unable to proceed to the functional websites behind Cloudflare's faltering security wall.
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How To Resolve 'Please Unblock Challenges Cloudflare.com To Proceed' Error
The outage sparked confusion and frustration on social media, with users sharing screenshots of the block pages. Many attempted to troubleshoot the problem on their end, following standard advice for such errors.
Here is a step-by-step guide to resolve this error:
1. Disable Browser Extensions. Some extensions might interfere with Cloudflare's security checks.
2. Switch Networks. If the issue is network-related, changing your connection may help.
3. Use a Different Browser.
4. Check for Malware.
5. Adjust VPN or Network Settings.
6. Update Browser and Security Tools.
Common user-led fixes included disabling browser extensions, switching networks, or trying a different browser. For the vast majority of users, the problem is not on their device or connection. The fault lay entirely with Cloudflare's infrastructure.