How to Fix: Webpage Temporarily Down or Moved Permanently in Chrome

Despite facing cut-throat competition in its domain, the Chrome browser has enjoyed its lion’s share of possession.

Many users are still inclined to this offering from Google and have no plan to switch to its counterpart, more so after it has made considerable strides in the performance segment.

However, all this doesn’t remove the fact that the browser isn’t free from its fair share of issues. In this regard, the ‘webpage is temporarily down or moved permanently to a new web address’ error seems to be bugging quite a few users as of late.

While on the first read, this error message points out the site’s server issues, which isn’t always the case.

The site is generally up and running sometimes, but the users still get this error. And in those cases, the issue stems from the browser itself.

No matter the root cause behind this error, this guide will outline different methods to help you fix “This site can’t be reached” in the Chrome browser. So without any further ado, let’s get started.

Check Page in other Browser

While it may sound along the apparent lines, you should first try accessing the site via another web browser. If your PC has no second browser installed, pick up your smartphone and try accessing the site via its browser.

If you still get the same error message across different browsers, the issue is with the site itself.

Either they have changed their domain address or are facing a server-side issue. Consider contacting via social media, wait a few hours, and then retry accessing that site.

On the other hand, if you are facing this issue only on Chrome, the problem is with the browser and not related to the server side. In that case, the below-shared workarounds shall help you fix the ‘webpage temporarily down or moved permanently to a new web address’ error.

Reset Winsock

The Winsock APIs establish a successful connection between the application and network services. If there is an issue with any of its APIs or DLLs, then the connection might break in between, and hence the concerned application might not be able to access the internet.

To rectify this issue, you should consider resetting Winsock and its components, bringing their configuration back to the factory default state, and, in turn, fixing the network-related issues.

Here are the steps to reset the Winsock in Windows OS:

1. Head to the Start menu, and search cmd prompt.
2. Launch Command Prompt as administrator.
   
3. Execute the below commands in the Command Prompt window.

   ipconfig /release
   ipconfig /flushdns
   ipconfig /renew
   netsh int ip set dns
   netsh winsock reset

With this, the Winsock components are reset, and the Internet Protocol settings have been renewed.

Now restart your PC and then try accessing the website. Check whether the ‘page temporarily down or moved permanently to a new web address’ issue has been fixed.

Disable Experimental QUIC Protocol

Quick UDP Internet Connection is a new protocol designed by Google that uses UDP as the transport protocol. However, as opposed to other protocols like SPDY and HTTP/2, UDP isn’t counted as actual web traffic by some firewalls, and hence the latter might straightaway block connections from the site that follows the said protocol.

Moreover, the QUIC is still in the experimental stage, which doesn’t benefit our current scenario. Considering all these points, you should disable the QUIC Protocol in Chrome.

1. Launch the Chrome browser on the computer.
2. Head over to Chrome’s Flags page below the address.

   chrome://flags/

3. Type QUIC in the search bar and press Enter key.
   It shall bring up the Experimental QUIC protocol flag.
4. Choose the Disabled option from the drop-down menu.
   
5. Hit the Relaunch button at the bottom of the browser screen.

Once the browser restarts, retry accessing the concerned page. Verify whether the ‘webpage temporarily down or moved permanently to a new web address’ issue has been fixed.

Disable Windows Firewall

In continuation to the first fix, if the site follows the UDP Protocol, there’s a high chance of the Firewall stopping that site from loading in your browser window. So it would be best to consider temporarily disabling the Firewall so the site can load properly.

Follow the steps to disable the Windows Defender Firewall:

1. Head to the Start menu, search Windows Defender Firewall and open it.
2. Click on Turn Windows Defender Firewall on or off from the left menu bar.
   
3. Select Turn off Windows Defender Firewall under the Private Network and Public Network.
4. Click the OK button to save changes.
   

Try loading the website now and check that you can fix the ‘webpage temporarily down or moved permanently to a new web address’ error. If your answer is negative, re-enable Firewall and move to our next fix listed below.

Disable Browser Extensions

In some instances, a third-party add-on might conflict with the loading of websites. You should consider browsing in Incognito Mode to verify if that is the case.

Doing so shall disable all the extensions, and if that ends up fixing the underlying issue, it confirms the problem with an add-on. So your next action should be to identify and remove that extension from the browser.

To begin with, use the Ctrl + Shift + N to open a new Incognito Window. Now browse the site that was earlier showing the error message. If it is now functioning well and well in this mode, the culprit seems to be an extension.

So leave this Incognito Mode and open a new browser window. Now try accessing the site after disabling one extension at a time. The last enabled extension that recreates the issue would be the issue causing the extension, so you should delete it from the browser.

1. Launch Google Chrome on the computer.
2. Open Chrome’s Extensions page in the address bar.

   chrome://extensions

3. Hit the Remove button next to the extension.
   

However, if you are getting the ‘webpage temporarily down or moved permanently to a new web address error’ in Incognito Mode, here are a few other tweaks that deserve your attention.

Reset Chrome Browser

If none of the abovementioned methods managed to spell out success, you should consider resetting Chrome. It will revert the browser settings to their default state; hence, the startup pages, pinned tabs, and the likes will all reset.

However, if that doesn’t work out, we must delete the saved bookmarks, history, and passwords. It will delete all the browser data and give Chrome a fresh new environment to work upon.

Here are the steps to reset the browser:

1. Launch the Google Chrome browser.
2. Open Chrome’s Reset Profile Settings page in the address bar.

   chrome://settings/resetProfileSettings

3. Click on the Reset Settings button and wait for the process to complete.
   Try opening the site; if it is now accessible, well and good.
4. Otherwise, open File Explorer via Windows + E shortcut keys and paste the below location in its address bar:

   %USERPROFILE%\AppData\Local\Google\Chrome\User Data

   

5. Select all and Delete the contents from the User Data directory.
6. Relaunch Chrome and sign in with your Google account.

It will sync all the browser data, and you should now be able to access the site without any issues in this new work environment.

Bottom Line

So with this, we round off the guide on how to fix Chrome’s ‘webpage temporarily down or moved permanently to a new web address’ error.

In my case, the site worked well in Mozilla Firefox and only threw this error in Chrome. So this was enough to give a clue that the issue was related to the browser itself.

Hence, I started by disabling the Experimental QUIC Protocol flag of the Chrome browser, and this, in turn, did rectify the underlying issue.

Let us know which method worked in your favor to fix the issue with the Page temporarily down or moved permanently to a new address issue in Chrome. Also, please share if you’ve tried and helped resolve Chrome’s “This site can’t be reached” error.

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