When entering into Internet browsers by ordinary users or when trying to access their own hosting by web developers, one often encounters a crash like 403 Forbidden. What is this mistake, in principle, almost everyone understands a little. But here are few who know how to fix it with the simplest methods. We will deal with these issues, but first, find out the nature of the error itself and the interpretation of the accompanying message that is present after the main failure code has been indicated.
What does 403 Forbidden error mean?
To understand the essence of the failure, for starters, you just need to translate the name of the error and phrase that is usually presented in the message box just below. “Forbidden” means “Forbidden,” followed by “Access denied” or “You do not have permission ...”.
The first phrase is interpreted as a ban on access, and the second may mean the absence of the necessary rights to such access or use of the service that is currently being accessed. However, even with an understanding of what is happening, errors should be divided into two main groups.
Note: a failure can have several names, but the main error code 403 or a warning is in any description.
403 Forbidden: what kind of error is it for ordinary users?
As for ordinary users, most often this failure is associated with situations when a user tries to enter some page on the Internet, but a ban is issued from the site. Why is this happening? Yes, just because they could simply ban him, for example, in the same social network. Access to some resources may be limited due to territorial restrictions on the computer device from which access is made (for example, blocking access to American Internet radio stations for Eastern Europe), there is a regional level blocking (for example, the inability to access Russian news or search resources on Ukraine), the address of the resource is incorrectly set, problems with the sites themselves are observed, or short-term failures occur in the operating system. We are not talking about viruses now, although such a variant of their effect cannot be ruled out.
Interpretation errors for webmasters
Now let's see what kind of error - 403 Forbidden - if we are talking about web developers. Most often, its appearance is associated with the assignment of incorrect names to some indexing files (index) of the PHP and HTML formats, the presence of prohibitions established in the .htaccess object, the absence of the necessary rights, etc.
Fix a crash using simple methods
After the main reasons for this phenomenon have been clarified, let's see how to fix 403 Forbidden using the simplest options for this.
Ordinary users are recommended to start by clearing the browser cache with related elements, then make a complete reboot of the system, and then try to log in to the desired resource again, at the same time checking the correctness of entering its address.
If you get a “ban” from a service, just try turning on the VPN client in the browser (in the latest versions of Opera browser it is built-in). But this only applies to cases associated with a change in the regional IP address. If access is blocked at the user registration level, this technique will not help.
In addition to the VPN, you can also use general-purpose programs like SafeIP directly in the browser. If the resource itself is inoperative (if there is such an opportunity), wait a while and try logging in again, and if this does not help, contact, say, an e-mail with the site administration and indicate the problem. Sometimes a similar situation can be associated with a provider that provides Internet access services. In this case, the actions are similar to the previous ones. Sometimes even a normal browser change helps.
Now let's see how to eliminate 403 Forbidden, if we are talking exclusively about webmasters. First of all, check the index file name setting.
Their names should contain only lowercase letters. Browse the .htaccess file and check for possible restrictions in its contents. In case of updating the DNS cache, which can also sometimes cause this phenomenon, wait about a day and repeat the necessary actions. Finally, note that for all directories, the correct access rights attributes must be set (for users and site administrators - 755, for owners - 744). In addition, it is advisable to check the placement of the page files themselves, which should be in strictly defined directories. If none of the above result gives, you can safely contact the hosting support service.
Brief Summary
What kind of error - 403 Forbidden - figured out. As a result, it can be noted that nothing terrible or disastrous for the user or for the web developer (hosting owner), its appearance does not represent. The prohibitions themselves are removed quite simply, but before using this or that solution, first make sure that the root cause is correctly determined. It is possible that some of the presented methods will not be needed at all.