As a website crawler, Sitebulb relies on a stable internet connection to make outgoing calls to our licensing server and website servers in order to crawl URLs and collect data.

At various points, while using the software, Sitebulb will make connections to our licensing server to check that you have a valid license. It is possible for certain settings within your computer or your network to block these requests, in which case Sitebulb will not be able to run properly.

A network or connection issue will manifest in different ways, depending on its cause and at what point in the process of logging in, licensing, or crawling it happens.

Here we look at the most common issues caused by network connections, and how to solve them.

Once your Paid desktop license expires, you’ll see the red Free Read-only tag replace the Pro or Lite license tag in the top left corner of your screen.

However, if you’re seeing this while your paid license is still active, it may indicate that something has interfered with the connection to our licensing server, and Sitebulb has not been able to verify your license.

A rarer but possible problem you may encounter is Sitebulb failing to recognize your account when it comes to logging in.

When logging in, Sitebulb makes calls to the licensing server to validate your account. Some companies have particularly strict IT policies, which can restrict the ability of the software to validate your login/license, defaulting to the 'No account found' message.

Please note that this error can also occur if your internet drops - however in this specific case you should also see a message alerting you to this: ‘No Internet Access’

The ‘Audit Currently Queued’ warning will normally appear if your license has expired or is invalid.

However, if your running audits go onto the queue without prompting or queued audits are failing to start, you may be dealing with an issue between your machine or network and the licensing server.

This could happen because of issues localized to your machine or wider network restrictions.

The first thing you’ll want to do is to double-check that the license you have activated on your machine is still active (it could be the case that your credit card has expired and you have not realised).

You can do this through the customer portal on our website. Simply log in, and verify the details of your license.

In most instances, if you are experiencing a network connection issue, you will find Sitebuilb disconnecting and jumping to ‘Free Read-only’ as you start new audits or navigate through the interface.

Here are the most common culprits and what to check:

If your internet connection completely drops, you will see the following message displayed in Sitebulb.

However, if your connection is just good enough to not drop completely but bad enough to get regularly interrupted at the critical moments when Sitebulb is doing its license checks, you may just run into a confusing problem…

Here’s what to check:

A short-term solution to these sorts of problems may not be feasible - for instance, if you are using a public Wi-Fi connection from a cafe or airport. Long term, we advise to avoid VPNs, proxies, and tethering if at all possible, and recommend a wired internet connection if it is impossible to achieve stability with a WiFi connection.

Sitebulb needs a consistent connection to perform various checks during the setup and auditing process. It is expecting this connection to come from a single, stable IP address. If this connection unexpectedly changes or is interrupted, you are likely to see errors.

Here’s what to check:

If you are accessing the internet through a VPN or Proxy, turn it off and try running the audit directly on your local machine.

Antivirus and firewall settings can also interfere with Sitebulb’s ability to make connections to the licensing server. This typically occurs in situations where your internal IT team has particularly strict security measures in place.

Here’s what to check:

Finally, if you have exhausted other avenues (e.g. you know that your internet connection is solid, your license is valid and there’s no anti-virus interfering) and Sitebulb is still unable to verify your account, you may need to request that your IT team whitelist the connection to Sitebulb’s licensing IP addresses and subdomains.

If you've tried everything listed above without luck, please get in touch so we can help you troubleshoot. The best place to report problems is through the Help Centre within the software.

You can also reach us at [email protected].