Pages do not load in the Visual Editor

8 min

Optimizely Web Experimentation

Optimizely Performance Edge

Are you seeing a message in the Visual Editor, "Sorry, we were unable to load..."? Or having trouble accessing a certain page in the Visual Editor?

If you see the message, "We have loaded your site using compatibility mode," you may be encountering an issue with mixed content. See Compatibility mode warning and mixed content in the Visual Editor.

If you are trying to load content that's in an iframe, see Cannot edit iframes in the Visual Editor.

If the issue is loading pages that require session-specific information or logging in (like a shopping cart, intranet page, or password-protected content), see Cannot load a password-protected, gated, or session-specific page in the Visual Editor.

If you are seeing a different problem, keep reading to troubleshoot and resolve issues with page-loading in the Optimizely Experimentation Editor.

Note

The Optimizely Experimentation Desktop App solves many common editor loading issues, including those listed here. Consider installing it if you are having trouble with the web application.

Wondering if your browser is supported? See Supported browsers for a complete list.

Clear browser cache and cookies

Sometimes the simplest solution when you encounter an editor-loading issue is to clear your browser cache and cookies.

Google Chrome

Type chrome://settings/clearBrowserData in the browser bar (where you usually enter a URL).

From the dropdown menu, select a time range to clear your entire cache and cookies.

Select the following:

Browsing history

Download history

Cookies and other site and plug-in data

Cached images and files

Click Clear browsing data.

Close all your Chrome windows and re-open Chrome.

Firefox

In the browser navigation menu, select History > Clear Recent History.

From the drop-down menu select a desired time range or Everything to clear your history.

Select the following:

Browsing & Download History

Cache

Click Clear now*.*

Close all of your Firefox windows and re-open Firefox.

Microsoft Edge

Click Settings (...).

Select Settings from the drop-down list.

Click Privacy, search, and services.

Click Clear browsing data and select Choose what to clear.

Select All time from the Time range drop-down list.

Select the following:

Browsing history

Download history

Cookies and other site data

Cached images and files

Click Clear now*.*

Close all Microsoft Edge windows and re-open Edge.

Safari

For Desktop

Select Safari > Clear History from the browser's top-navigation menu.

From the Clear menu, select your desired time range or all history to clear your browser cache and cookies.

Click Clear History, then close all of your Safari windows and re-open Safari.

For iOS

Open the Settings app.

Tap Safari.

Tap Clear History and Website Data*,* then close all of your Safari windows and re-open Safari.

For Android

From the Settings menu, tap Apps or Application Manager.

Choose the All tab.

Find your web browser, then tap it.

Tap Clear Data, then Clear Cache, then close all of your browser windows and re-open your browser.

Android encompasses a wide variety of devices and browsers, so these steps may differ for you.

Common Visual Editor page-loading issues

Try these steps, one by one, to try to resolve some common page-loading issues.

Confirm that your page loads consistently outside of Optimizely Experimentation. Make sure you can reach the page in your browser, outside of Optimizely Experimentation, multiple times in a row. If the page does not load outside of Optimizely Experimentation, it may not load in Optimizely Experimentation either.

Clear your browser cache and cookies. Then, reload the page.

Confirm that the Optimizely Experimentation snippet is installed: open the developer console and type optimizely. If the search returns an error, such as "optimizely is undefined," the snippet is not implemented correctly.

See Implement the one-line snippet for Optimizely Web Experimentation. Make sure the snippet is installed synchronously at the top of your <head> tag.

Try loading the page with the pop-out editor. See Visual Editor in Optimizely Web Experimentation and Optimizely Performance Edge.

Less common Visual Editor page-loading issues

Check the JavaScript console for errors that do not normally exist on the page. Filter the console output for error logs.

If you see an error within bundle or client.js/[projectID].js, there may be a conflict.

If your site is using Content Security Policies, the error will begin with: refused to execute inline script because it violates the the following Content Security Policy. In some scenarios, you can use a browser extension to get around this issue.

Confirm whether your site is configured to disallow parameters it does not expect and parameters that include raw URLs. To check this, try to load the page with an innocuous query parameter like ?test=true and then a parameter that contains a raw URL. If your site disallows unexpected parameters, you need to allow-list Optimizely Experimentation's Editor parameters. Contact support to learn more or try the Optimizely Experimentation Desktop App.

Check whether the page loads outside the Editor within an arbitrary iframe. Some sites have frame-busting logic that prevents them from being iframed correctly. Try constructing an iframe on any page through the browser console to see if the page loads correctly. For example:

<iframe src='http://www.atticandbutton.us/' style='width:800px;height:600px'></iframe>

If the page will not load in an arbitrary iframe, you may need to whitelist the Optimizely Experimentation domain (https://app.optimizely.com) as a valid host. Or, try the Optimizely Experimentation Desktop App.

Note

If you tried the steps in this article, but still cannot correctly load your page in the Editor, try the Optimizely Assistant Chrome extension.