- This article is about errors in the Scratch program. For other uses, see Error (disambiguation).
An error is a mistake or a malfunction that occurs when a program runs into a problem and cannot complete the instructions it is given. In Scratch 3.0, an error can occur if the project crashes, fails to load, is used with incompatible hardware or software, runs into a script error, or is overloaded. There are also many errors to do with the Scratch Website, and there are many types of errors that can occur.
Types of Error
There are many types of errors that can occur in the Scratch program.
Project Crash
- Main article: Making Scratch Crash
Mostly, the project may crash if it's having issues, such as variables and lists getting too long, having too many clones, or is erroneously doing multiple things at once. In rare cases, an error will be always shown when trying to access the project.
The screen is usually blue, has a "reload" icon, and says "Oops! Something went wrong." The text was gray on early versions of the 3.0 online editor before being changed to white.
There is a white button that lets the user reload the page to try loading the project again. It can be shown on both the project and the editor.
Additionally, there are two variants; one used in April Fools 2025, and one used for the 7th day of Scratchtober 2025, where it shows a message in the same style that "this project was glitched". [1]
Error ID
Previously, Sentry was used by Scratch to collect and report errors automatically. When it reported details to the Scratch Team privately, an error ID was generated and added to the bottom of the error message, for example, "Your error was logged with id 0123456789abcdef0123456789abcdef". This changes each time the error was reported, and the ID itself didn't give any information without data sent to Sentry.
Later, Scratch stopped using Sentry for reporting errors. The ID was removed from the error message whenever it was displayed. [2]
Error Details
Some browsers have a feature to see the logs from JavaScript.
- On Chrome and Firefox, press F12 and see Console.
- On Mac, ⌘ Cmd+⌥ Option+I will work.
Paint Editor Crash
Whenever an SVG file that was created with some image editors, such as Affinity Designer, is uploaded, it makes both the project viewer and the paint editor window impossible to render and may break. This also occurs when converting from vector to bitmap too many times, converting to bitmap and into vector back in the Rays backdrop, and putting in a Unicode square icon text into the editor. However, the rest of the Scratch program can still be used.
Loading Error
Sometimes, a project may fail to load, and this can cause a crash. In other times, the project can either be broken or overloaded.
When Scratch 3.0 was released, there was a bug that caused projects to fail to load and crash instead. It was fixed a few days later.[citation needed]
Scratch Lab
A Scratch Lab project is made with experimental extensions, and if it's imported into the normal Scratch editor, it may result in a loading failure and a crash.
Script Errors
- Main article: Script Error
When a script attempts an impossible operation, like dividing by zero or assigning text to a sprite position, it triggers a script error. Unlike most other errors, it skips the problematic block and continues running the rest of the script.
Incompatible Software or Hardware
- Main article: System Requirements
Old operating systems, unsupported browsers (such as Internet Explorer, Opera, and older versions of Chrome), or minimum system requirements on some computers (mainly WebGL being unsupported) can cause errors because they are incapable of running Scratch 3.0. If a user does not have compatible hardware or sofware to run Scratch 3.0, they should try using older versions instead (such as Scratch 2.0 or Scratch 1.x).
This error may also happen on lower-end devices, like Chromebooks, even if a user is using a supported browser and device.[3] This problem is usually fixed by waiting it out, restarting, or hardware restarting.
Website (HTTP) Errors
Errors might occur when accessing the Scratch Website. They are shown below by their HTTP status codes.
403
- Main article: 403 Error
The 403 error occurs when a page requested is forbidden, such as when an account with an unverified email tries creating a new post on the Scratch Discussion forums.
The test page for the error is viewable here.
404
- Main article: 404 Error
The 404 error occurs when the requested page does not exist. The layout uses the Scratch 2.0 layout when viewing deleted users and other unavailable pages and the 3.0 layout when viewing deleted projects and studios.
The test page for the error is viewable here.
The downloads.scratch.mit.edu page contains another version of the 404 error.
429
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The 429 error occurs when actions or requests are performed too frequently. An example is moving around the website too quickly. The error page contains an embed of the project "DINO-GIFFIC!!!" by former Scratch Team member raimondious.
The test page for the error is viewable here.
429-email
This variant of the 429 error occurs when too much mail was sent too frequently, usually through excess Help Center messages that send emails to the Scratch Team.[citation needed] The page contains an embed of the project "Evil Mailbox remix" by the same user.
The test page for this error is also viewable.
500
- Main article: 500 Error
The 500 error occurs when an internal error occurs, such as the server either not responding or being overloaded, an outage, or the Scratch Team doing tests without Maintenance Mode.
The test page for the error is viewable here.
503
- Main article: Maintenance Mode
HTTP 503 (Service Unavailable) is the status code for Maintenance Mode when the Scratch Team is either making planned changes to the website, or working to fix an issue.
The test page for the error is viewable here.
Forum Error Page
The forums have their own special error page that appears when the forums are down separately from the website itself. This page contains an embed of Scratch's Twitter (now known as X) account; this no longer shows a live feed of updates as Twitter's logged-out feed now orders tweets by the number of likes.
References
- ↑ projects:1226957650
- ↑ cwillisf. (2023-01-27). "We're no longer planning to use Sentry in this way." https://github.com/scratchfoundation/scratch-gui/pull/8751
- ↑ topic:376973
