Troubleshooting

    My Site Shows as Down But It's Working

    Why LemWatch might report downtime when your site is actually accessible.

    Updated 2026-03-10
    2 min read
    false positive
    downtime
    troubleshooting

    Quick answer

    Why is my site marked as down when it's actually up??

    The most common causes are Cloudflare rate-limiting the check region, a CDN cold start, or IPv6 misconfiguration — pin the check region and use HEAD retries first.

    My Site Shows as Down But It's Working#

    This is called a "false positive" — LemWatch detected downtime but your site is actually accessible. Here's why it happens and what to do.

    Common Causes#

    #### 1. Firewall/WAF Blocking

    Your firewall or Web Application Firewall (Cloudflare, Sucuri, etc.) might be blocking LemWatch's monitoring requests.

    Fix: Allowlist LemWatch's IP ranges in your firewall settings. Contact support for the current IP list.

    #### 2. Geo-Restrictions

    Your site may be restricted by country or region, and LemWatch checks from locations outside your allowed regions.

    Fix: Ensure your geo-restrictions allow access from LemWatch's monitoring locations.

    #### 3. Rate Limiting

    Your server might rate-limit automated requests, causing LemWatch's checks to receive 429 (Too Many Requests) responses.

    Fix: Allowlist LemWatch's User-Agent or IP addresses in your rate limiter.

    #### 4. CAPTCHA/Bot Protection

    Some bot protection services (hCaptcha, reCAPTCHA) intercept automated requests.

    Fix: Create an exception rule for LemWatch's User-Agent.

    #### 5. DNS Propagation

    If you recently changed DNS records, the old records might still be cached.

    Fix: Wait 24–48 hours for DNS propagation to complete.

    Reducing False Positives#

  1. Set the consecutive failure threshold to 2 or 3 in Settings → Notifications
  2. This requires multiple failed checks before triggering an alert
  3. LemWatch already re-checks before alerting, but increasing the threshold adds extra protection
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