Errors explained
ERR_TOO_MANY_REDIRECTS

ERR_TOO_MANY_REDIRECTS Explained

Site owners
The short answer

ERR_TOO_MANY_REDIRECTS means the site kept sending your browser to another address in a loop, so the browser gave up rather than following it forever. Chrome shows it as This page isn’t working with redirected you too many times underneath. It is very often an HTTPS misconfiguration, most commonly a loop between a CDN and the origin server, and it is the site owner's problem to fix.

If you were just trying to buy something

This is almost always the site's fault, not yours. The page is bouncing between two addresses and never arrives.

The one thing worth trying: clear cookies for that site specifically, then reload. Some loops are driven by a stale login or session cookie, and clearing it breaks the cycle.

If that does not work, there is nothing else for you to do. Come back later, or contact the business another way if you were in the middle of an order.

If this is your site

Something in your setup is redirecting requests in a circle. Nine times out of ten it is HTTP and HTTPS arguing with each other across two layers that cannot see what the other is doing.

Start with your CDN or proxy settings before you touch your site code. The Cloudflare Flexible SSL trap described below causes more of these than everything else combined.

What Chrome shows

There is no security warning here. The connection worked fine, the browser simply refused to keep chasing the same page.

This page isn’t working
example.com redirected you too many times.

ERR_TOO_MANY_REDIRECTS

Browsers cap how many redirects they will follow, usually around twenty. The cap is what produces the error, not the redirect itself.

The Cloudflare Flexible SSL trap

This is the single most common cause, and it is worth understanding properly because the symptoms make no sense until you do.

Cloudflare has an SSL mode called Flexible. In that mode Cloudflare serves your visitors over HTTPS, but talks to your own server over plain HTTP.

Now add the rule most sites have: your server redirects any plain HTTP request to HTTPS. So Cloudflare sends an HTTP request, your server says go to HTTPS, Cloudflare sends the request again over HTTP, and your server says the same thing. Forever.

The fix is to stop using Flexible. Install a certificate on your own server and set the SSL mode to Full (strict). If your origin certificate is not valid you will see Error 526 instead, which at least tells you exactly what is wrong.

The other usual causes

If a CDN is not involved, work through these.

  • →WordPress site URL settings. The site address and home address in settings point at HTTP while a redirect rule forces HTTPS, or one has www and the other does not. Two rules, opposite directions, endless loop.
  • →Conflicting .htaccess rules. A redirect added by a plugin, plus one added by your host, plus one you wrote yourself. Each is reasonable alone. Together they form a circle.
  • →A plugin doing the redirect too. Force HTTPS plugins and caching plugins both like to add redirects. Running one alongside a server rule is a classic way to get here.
  • →www and non-www fighting. One rule strips www, another adds it back. The browser dutifully follows both, forever.
  • →A cookie or session loop. A login page redirects to the dashboard, the dashboard does not recognise the session and redirects back to login. This is the one case where clearing cookies genuinely helps a visitor.

If it is your site: how to find the loop

The trick is to stop guessing and see the actual chain of redirects.

  1. 1.Test in a private window. This removes cookies from the picture straight away and tells you whether the loop is session related.
  2. 2.Look at the redirect chain, not just the final error. Any redirect checker or your browser's network panel will show you the sequence. The two addresses that keep repeating are your answer.
  3. 3.Check your CDN SSL mode first. If you use Cloudflare, move off Flexible. This alone resolves most of these.
  4. 4.Then check your platform settings. In WordPress, make the site address and home address match exactly, including the protocol and whether or not there is a www.
  5. 5.Disable your redirect rules temporarily. Comment out the .htaccess rules and switch off any force HTTPS plugin, then add one back at a time. The one that recreates the loop is the one to rewrite.
  6. 6.Only add HSTS once the loop is gone. HSTS makes browsers cache your HTTPS preference, which is excellent when things work and painful when they do not.

Why it looks like an HTTPS problem when it is not quite

People arrive at this error convinced their certificate has broken. It usually has not.

The certificate can be perfectly valid at every layer. The problem is that two layers disagree about which protocol the request is already using, so each one keeps trying to correct the other.

That is why our free check can show a healthy certificate while the site is still unreachable. Both facts are true at once. If you want the certificate side covered properly, our guide to SSL on WordPress walks through the settings that cause this pairing of symptoms.

Frequently asked questions

Will clearing my cookies fix it?

Sometimes, and it is worth one try. Clear cookies for that site specifically rather than everything. If the loop comes from a stale session it will clear. If it comes from the site's server configuration, it will not, and that is not something you can fix as a visitor.

Is the site unsafe if I see this?

No. This is a configuration fault, not a security warning. Nothing was blocked for your protection and nothing about your data was at risk. The page simply never loaded.

Why does it work on my phone but not my laptop?

Usually cookies. Your laptop has an old session cookie for the site and your phone does not, so only one of them gets caught in the loop. A private window on the laptop will normally confirm it.

I changed my Cloudflare SSL mode and now I get a different error. Is that worse?

It is progress. Moving from Flexible to Full (strict) can reveal that your own server has no valid certificate, which shows up as Error 526 or Error 525. Those errors name the real problem, which the redirect loop was hiding.

How many redirects are too many?

Browsers stop after around twenty. There is no way to raise that, and no reason to want to. A legitimate site rarely needs more than one or two redirects to land a visitor on the right page.

Related errors

ERR_SSL_PROTOCOL_ERROR

The secure connection failed before it started.
ERR_SSL_VERSION_OR_CIPHER_MISMATCH

The server is too old to agree on a secure connection.
Not secure

The address bar label, and why the padlock disappeared.
Mixed content

An HTTPS page loading parts of itself insecurely.

See all errors explained →

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