Recently I have been trying to migrate my blog to a new server and in the process, I had to check my blog URL several times to verify if everything is working all right. If you are a blogger or a webmaster, you would know that after migrating to a new server you need to be sure about things such as DNS propagation, permalink structure, etc. During the process, I encountered a strange error on my Google Chrome browser. While trying to access my blog URL, the web page was showing a “this webpage has a redirect loop” or error 310 (net:: err_too_many_redirects). Now the error “this webpage has a redirect loop” is not necessarily a webmaster side issue. Even, you can face this error if you try to reload a web page several times, in a short period. There is no single fix for this error as the fix would depend on the type of users. In this post, I will be listing fixes for both the webmasters and end users facing the “this webpage has a redirect loop” error. For End Users – Fix This webpage has a redirect loop Note: As an end-user you can only fix this issue if it is related to your Browser and settings. If the issue is from the server end, you may need to contact the web admin and inform them about the issue. Restart your PC – Most of the time errors related to the web page or PC can be temporary. So, a quick restart could fix the issue. So, restart your computer and try again to visit the web page. If the error persists, proceed with other fixes. Clear Cookies – When you encounter this error, you may see a typical solution suggested by the Google Chrome error page that is to clear the cookies from your browser. So, let’s begin with doing the same and clearing out the cookies. You can clear the cookies in Chrome browser from the Settings page. To do this, click the Chrome Menu icon ( three horizontal bars) at the top right side and select Settings from the options. Scroll down and click the Advanced Settings. It will expand the section. Under Advanced Settings, look for Privacy and click the Content Settings button. It will open a new dialogue box. The very first section here should be the Cookies. Click All cookies and site data button. In the new dialogue box, you will see all the saved cookies data being listed. To delete the cookies from Google Chrome browser, click Remove all button at the top right side. Click Finish button and close the Google Chrome browser. If you have other Chrome windows open, close them as well. Now open the Google Chrome browser and try to visit the website that was giving “this webpage has a redirect loop” error. If you can visit the web page without any error, then congratulation. If not, check out the other solutions given below. Clear All Browsing Data – If clearing the cookies didn’t fix the error, then you can try clearing all browsing data. To do this, go to Chrome Menu and select Settings. Scroll down, click on Show advanced settings and then click on Clear Browsing data button. A new dialogue box will open. Here you can select all the kind of data that you want to delete or clear. Click Obliterate the following items from the drop-down menu and select From the beginning of time. Click Clear Browsing data button to clear all the data from your browser. Now close all the instance of Google Chrome browser, and open it again. Try to visit the web page giving “this webpage has a redirect loop” and if the error has been resolved. Check your WiFi Router – If you are using a WiFi router to connect to the internet, then check it for any problems. Turn it off and turn On it again and see if the error goes away. If you have a WiFi extender attached, try to switch it off then try to turn it on again. Use a VPN Client and CCleaner – Before moving to the last step, you can download any registry and junk file cleaning tool such as CCleaner on your PC and clean all the unnecessary junk data. Once cleared, open the Google Chrome browser and visit the web page with the error. If not, resolved, download and install a VPN client. You can get free VPN clients for Windows such as Hotspot Shield. Reset Chrome Browser – If nothing seems working, you may try resetting your Chrome browser. To reset your Chrome browser, enter chrome://settings/resetProfileSettings in the URL bar and hit enter. A new Reset Settings dialogue box will open. Carefully read the description given in the dialogue box, and if you are sure you want to reset the settings, click the Reset button. For Webmasters – Fix This webpage has a redirect loop If you are a web administrator and are facing the “this webpage has a redirect loop” error message then here are some fixes for you to try. Follow steps recommended for the end-user – Before you proceed with other solutions, make sure that you have followed the solutions given for the end users like clearing cookies, clearing browsing data, etc. If the issue persists, follow these steps. Check if the issue is from the Server end – To make sure that the issue is from your server end, use any proxy service such as HideMyAss.com/proxy or the Proxysite.com and enter your page URL. If you get similar kind of error, then the issue could be from your server end. You can also use any other browser apart from your current browser and see if the web page opens or you face similar kind of error in it as well. Disable Redirection Plugin – If you have recently used or installed a redirect plugin to redirect some old URLs to new permalink structure then you may need to remove it. I first come across this issue after installing simple 301 redirects plugin. While setting up the plugin I had used wrong permalink structure for the redirection, which resulted in “this webpage has a redirect loop” error. I was able to resolve the error, by displaying the plugin. So, login to the wp-admin dashboard and disable any redirection plugin. If you are unable to access the admin dashboard, log in to your server using FTP client such as FileZilla. Navigate to your website’s Wp-content folder. Open the Plugin folder, and take backup of the redirection plugin. Next, delete the Redirection plugin. Now try to login to your WordPress dashboard and see if the error has been fixed. If not, you may need to create a fresh .htaccess file. Create a Fresh .htaccess file – If your website is working fine that is if you can access your home page example.com, but are unable to access example.com/wp-admin then you may have an issue with the .htaccess file. To fix this, you need to delete or modify the current .htaccess file and then recreate a fresh .htaccess file. You can access the .htaccess file from the ssh terminal command if you have access to it, or you can use FTP client such as FileZilla. Login to your server using FileZilla and navigate to your Public_html folder. Look for the .htaccess file. Right-click on it and download it to your local computer. Next, right-click on the .htaccess file and select edit. If you are familiar with the .htaccess rules, then remove any rules that you think you haven’t added. If not, simply delete the .htacesss file from the public_html folder. Go back to your browser and see if you can access the WP-admin dashboard. If you can, go to Settings, click Permalink and here you need to change your permalink structure temporarily. Before you change the permalink structure, take a screenshot of your current permalink structure. Next, change to a new permalink structure temporarily and save the settings. It will create a new .htaccess file in your public_html folder. Now you can safely, revert to your original permalink structure.
