This guide helps you quickly identify, understand and resolve common issues you might encounter while using accessFlow.
Audit failures
The last audit failed
What this means
Issues can’t be displayed because the last audit failed.
How to resolve it
- Ensure your website is reachable. If a bypass for a login wall is required, configure it in Settings. See Configure pre-audit actions
- Ensure the website is available. If it is behind a firewall or other security services, contact Customer Support to learn how to whitelist our IP address.
- Check that there are no internal network issues or configuration issues that might be preventing accessFlow from auditing your site.
- If your site is not publicly available, in Settings you may need to add custom headers, cookies, user agents or authentication to access the website. Contact Customer Support for information on user agents. See Auditing non-public websites
The last audit failed due to Cloudflare blocking bots
The audit failed because Cloudflare blocked the audit requests. This usually happens when Cloudflare’s security rules presents a CAPTCHA challenge or block the requests entirely..
Configure a Cloudflare bypass
To bypass automatic Cloudflare bot management, create a safe list for the accessFlow scanner. This creates an exception so Cloudflare ignores requests that include your unique secret string.
- Create Rule: In the Cloudflare dashboard, go to Rules > Configuration Rules.
- Matching Criteria: Set the field to User Agent and use the operator Contains.
-
The Secret: Enter a custom secret string (e.g.,
accessFlow-Audit-Bypass-XYZ). -
The Action: Set the Security Level to Off for this rule.
This ensures that any request carrying your secret User Agent string will skip standard bot challenges.
Configure accessFlow settings
Next, configure accessFlow to include your secret string in audit requests. This helps Cloudflare recognize the accessFlow scanner as a legitimate accessibility tool.
- In accessFlow go to Settings > Pre-audit configurations.
- Scroll down to Site access settings and next to User Agent select Add.
- Enter the following string where userSecret is the secret you configured in Cloudflare (exactly as you typed it).
Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/126.0.6478.71 Safari/537.36 AccessibeBot/1.0/{{userSecret}} - Select Apply.
Why did the audit failed for a specific page
What this means
accessFlow failed to audit a specific page.
How to resolve it
- Check that the page exists and is reachable.
- Does your site require a login wall bypass? See Configure pre-audit actions
- If the page is no longer relevant remove the page. Removing a page will prevent the page from being included in subsequent audits and will delete any issue data associated with the page.
- Reaudit the page: Go to Explore and select the Web pages tab. Select the page in the left panel and then select the Reaudit icon
The pre-audit actions failed
What this means
The pre-audit actions failed. This may impact the results of the last audit.
How to resolve it
- Ensure that the CSS selectors defined in Settings > Site settings > Pre-audit actions are correct and up-to-date. Check for highlighted steps with errors.
- Check that the username and password provided are correct.
- When 2-factor authentication is used to login, consider using a cookie in the Site access settings to save the session.
Pre-audit actions failed due to dynamic ids
What this means
When configuring pre-audit actions, the audit failed because the selector does not exist even after validation.
How to resolve it
Sometimes websites with a dynamic nature fail to log in correctly because the id of a specific field is a dynamically generated value. Therefore, the login fails to access authenticated resources. In Settings > Site settings > Pre-audit actions, adjust the selectors in the login steps manually to exclude dynamic elements.
Partial audits
A limited number of pages were audited
What this means
accessFlow only audits the initial page or a few pages, not the entire site.
How to resolve it
- Does your site require a login? See Configure pre-audit actions
- Is your site a Single Page Application (SPA)? SPA’s have different methods of routing to pages. If your site uses buttons or Javascript links, accessFlow can’t discover the pages to audit. For SPA websites, use the Journeys feature to audit the page or user flow. Note that sites using navigation without links have an accessibility issue. See How journeys work for auditing user flows
- Are you on a trial? Purchase a plan to enable auditing your entire site.
Issue number changes
There was a significant decrease in issue numbers
What this means
There was a significant decrease in the number of issues reported from the last audit, despite not addressing a large number of previously identified issues.
How to resolve it
The audit may not have been able to reach certain pages on your site. Go to Explore > Web pages to identify any unreachable pages and take the necessary actions.
There was a significant increase in the number of issues
What this means
There was a significant increase in the number of issues reported from the last audit.
What caused it
- The audit may found new pages and added issues as a result. Go to Dashboard and in the Audit updates section, check if new pages were identified.
- You may have recently added a login wall bypass allowing previously inaccessible pages to be audited.
The issue id numbers have changed
What this means
I have a similar number of issues as the previous audit, but all the id numbers have changed.
What caused it
You may have changed something in the site, such as the page layout, UI changes, or class names in upper elements of the page. Elements are identified by their selectors, so changes to the elements, will be identified as new issues. The previous issues are no longer relevant and are replaced with new issues that are identical but with a different id, URL and comment history
Removing pages
How to remove a page from your audit
If you need to remove a page from future audits, either because it has been deleted or it is no longer relevant, you can manually remove it. Removing a page will prevent the page from being included in subsequent audits and will delete any issue data associated with the page.
Audit errors
The following audit errors may appear in the Dashboard.
Invalid domain
What this means
The domain isn't valid.
How to resolve it
Verify that the domain exists.
Page timeout
What this means
The page took too long to load.
How to resolve it
- Check that the page exists. If the page still exists, reaudit the page: Go to Explore and select the Web pages tab. Select the page in the left panel and then select the Reaudit icon.
- Make sure you server meets the minimum hardware requirements to handle 2 page requests per minute, otherwise the server may be overloaded.
Page scan interrupted
What this means
The page scan was interrupted due to page redirection.
How to resolve it
Reaudit the page: Go to Explore and select the Web pages tab. Select the page in the left panel and then select the Reaudit icon.
Page scan aborted
What this means
The page scan aborted because the page closed during the audit.
Non-licensed domain
What this means
The domain is not covered by your license.
403: Blocked
What this means
Access to the page was blocked.
How to resolve it
- Ensure the website is available. If it is behind a firewall or other security services, Contact Customer Support to learn how to whitelist our IP address.
- If your site is not publicly available, in Audit Settings you may need to add a user agent to access the website. Contact Customer Support. See Auditing non-public websites
- Reaudit the page: Go to Explore and select the Web pages tab. Select the page in the left panel and then select the Reaudit icon.
403: Blocked by Cloudflare
What this means
accessFlow's requests may be blocked by your site if detected as bot-like behavior.
How to resolve it
Contact Customer Support to learn how to whitelist our IP address to avoid this issue.
401: Access denied
What this means
The page might require authentication.
How to resolve it
See Configure pre-audits actions to bypass a login wall.
404: Not found
What this means
The page could not be found.
How to resolve it
- Verify this page still exists.
- If the page still exists, reaudit the page: Go to Explore and select the Web pages tab. Select the page in the left panel and then select the Reaudit icon.
- If the page does not exist, exclude the page from the audit: Go to Explore and select the Web pages tab. Select the page in the left panel and then select Delete page.
- Did the page path change? Add the new page path: Go to Explore and select the Web pages tab. Select Add page and enter the new page path.
3xx: Redirected
What this means
The page redirects to another page before it loads.
How to resolve it
Exclude the page from the audit: Go to Explore and select the Web pages tab. Select the three-dot menu next to a page, and then select Delete Page.
4xx: Failed request
What this means
The page couldn't be reached.
How to resolve it
- Verify the page is reachable directly. Otherwise create a journey to audit the page. See How journeys work for auditing user flows
- If the page does not need to be audited, exclude the page from the audit: Go to Explore and select the Web pages tab. Select the page in the left panel and then select Delete page.
- Confirm your site is up and running.
5xx: Server error
What this means
The server failed to respond during the audit.
How to resolve it
- Confirm your site is up and running.
- Make sure you server meets the minimum hardware requirements to handle 2 page requests per minute, otherwise the server may be overloaded.