Recipe Health
Every recipe in your dashboard has a health indicator - a small pill next to the recipe name that shows whether your scrape is working or needs attention.
Simplescraper runs health checks after each run - things like HTTP response codes, whether data was returned, and selector stability. If something looks off, the pill turns amber or red so you can catch problems early.
Viewing recipe health
- Open any recipe from your dashboard
- Look for the health pill next to the recipe name - it shows a colored dot and a status label
- Click the pill to open the Scrape Health panel
The pill shows one of three states:
- Green - all checks passed
- Amber - one or more warnings
- Red - critical issues that are likely affecting your data
What gets checked
The health panel checks your most recent scrape results and logs. Each check shows a colored dot, a label, and a short message.
| Check | What it looks for |
|---|---|
| Last Run | Did the most recent run return any data? Flags critical if zero rows came back |
| Bot Protection | Was bot detection (like Cloudflare or Akamai) triggered on the target site? |
| HTTP Response | Did the site return a 200 status code? For bulk scrapes, shows how many pages returned non-200 responses and which codes appeared |
| CSS Selector Stability | Are your selectors likely to break? Some sites use randomized class names that change on each deploy |
| Column Consistency | Do all columns have the same number of rows? A mismatch means one selector is matching fewer elements than the others |
| Page Errors | Did any pages fail to load? Shows the error type if available |
| Run History | Have the last two or more runs in a row returned zero data? One empty run can be a fluke, but repeated failures point to a real problem |
Understanding the results
Green dot - the check passed.
Amber dot - a warning. The scrape may still be returning data, but something is worth looking into. For example: bot protection detected, some pages returned non-200 codes, or column counts don't match.
Red dot - a critical issue. Your scrape is probably not returning the data you expect. Usually this means the last run returned zero rows, or several runs in a row have failed.
Gray dot - the check couldn't run, usually because there aren't enough results yet (the recipe has never run, or only has one run in its history).
Some findings include a "view logs" link that takes you to the run logs where you can see screenshots and error details.
Site Unblocker
Some websites actively block automated scraping. Site Unblocker solves this by testing thousands of proxies and building a custom pool for your domain, so your scrapes get through without you having to find and configure proxies yourself.
Site Unblocker is available on paid plans. It appears as a row at the bottom of the health panel.
Enabling Site Unblocker
- Open the Scrape Health panel for a recipe that is being blocked
- Click the Enable button on the Site Unblocker row
- Simplescraper starts testing proxies against that site - you'll see a progress indicator while this runs
Unblocker status
| Status | What it means |
|---|---|
| Not enabled | The unblocker hasn't been turned on for this site |
| Setting up / Unblocking | Simplescraper is testing proxies against your site. This can take a few minutes |
| Unblocker active (green) | Working proxies found - your scrapes will use them automatically |
| Unable to unblock (red) | All available proxies have been tested and none could access the site. Contact support for help |
Tips
- Run your recipe at least once before checking health - most checks need a completed run to report anything useful
- If you see a Column Consistency warning, check whether one of your selectors targets an element that doesn't appear on every list item
- CSS Selector Stability warnings flag randomized CSS selectors that are likely to change more frequently than normal. Try re-selecting those properties with more durable selectors
- For bulk scrapes with a few non-200 pages, check whether those URLs are still valid. A handful of 404s in a large batch is normal
Need help?
Click the chat button in the bottom-right corner to get in touch.