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captcha not working...never ends

  • 29 replies
  • 64 have this problem
  • 11230 views
  • Last reply by Paul

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On a couple of websites, but in particular Rogers.com, the captcha just never ends. It asks to click on all the bicycles, I click on them one at a time until no more appear, hit verify, it brings up something else. It will do this dozens of times and just never ever end.

Switch over to Edge, does the same. Switched to chrome and it works fine. Has google done something to captcha to deny it working on other browsers?

I have checked to see firefox is up to date and it is. I have disabled all extensions/addons. I have run malware/virus scans. On the Rogers community forums there are all kinds of people having problems but there are no solutions on how to fix. Oddly (or not) the problems are similar...captcha won't work on Edge, Firefox but will work on Chrome.

On a couple of websites, but in particular Rogers.com, the captcha just never ends. It asks to click on all the bicycles, I click on them one at a time until no more appear, hit verify, it brings up something else. It will do this dozens of times and just never ever end. Switch over to Edge, does the same. Switched to chrome and it works fine. Has google done something to captcha to deny it working on other browsers? I have checked to see firefox is up to date and it is. I have disabled all extensions/addons. I have run malware/virus scans. On the Rogers community forums there are all kinds of people having problems but there are no solutions on how to fix. Oddly (or not) the problems are similar...captcha won't work on Edge, Firefox but will work on Chrome.

Chosen solution

Try clearing cookies and disabling Tracking Protection for the site.

Does it still happen in a new profile (without signing into sync account)? An easy way to test a new profile is to install Developer Edition and see if it happens there or refresh your existing profile.


For anyone experiencing the broken captchas starting in May 2024: Google owns the Recaptcha "I'm not a Robot"/"Verify you're human" service It looks like Google broke something in their code. Please refer to Jscher2000's advice below to workaround this until Google fixes this issue:

Hi All, if you are having the problem that the blue spinner never stops and there's no picture popup, this looks like a problem in Google's reCAPTCHA script. The workaround for the moment is to change the way Firefox identifies itself to websites from Firefox for Windows to something else, such as Firefox for Mac or Chrome for Windows. You either can do that with a hidden settings change or with an add-on. Please see the following post for more information:

https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/1446332#answer-1650750

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All Replies (9)

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reCAPTCHA works for me on Linux with the current release with all websites posted in various threads about this issue including Google recaptcha/api2/demo. It also works with a MAC user agent, so only a Windows user agent seems to be affected.

  • Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64; rv:125.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/125.0
  • Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10.15; rv:125.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/125.0
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Hi bms, do you mean the reCAPTCHA widget ("I'm not a robot") isn't shown, so you cannot start the process by checking the box there, or the pop-up doesn't pop up so you can't click images?

If you see the widget on some site but not others, the problem might be some strong blocking settings or add-ons. As an example of where you should see it, but get the spinning error:

https://safebrowsing.google.com/safebrowsing/report_phish/?hl=en

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@jscher2000:

The widget doesn't appear at all.

I have not encountered any other sites recently that required reCAPTCHA authentication.

Thanks... bms

P.S. I have been using the site in question to pay my water bill for several years without problem.

Modified by bms

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Hi bms, if the usual things do not help get reCAPTCHA to appear on the page, it's probably best to start a new question because this one was already marked solved some time ago.

New question link: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/new/desktop/form

The usual:

If a site is generally known to work in Firefox, these are standard suggestions to try when it stops working normally:

Double-check content blockers: Firefox's Tracking Protection feature, and extensions that counter ads and tracking, may break websites that embed third party content (meaning, from a secondary server).

(A) The shield icon toward the left end of the address bar usually turns a bit purplish when content is blocked. Click the icon to learn more or make an exception. See: Enhanced Tracking Protection in Firefox for desktop.

(B) Extensions such as Adblock Plus, Blur, Disconnect, DuckDuckGo Privacy Essentials, Ghostery, NoScript, Privacy Badger, uBlock Origin or uMatrix may block required elements on a site. Usually you can find a toolbar button for each add-on to manage blocked content in a page. There may or may not be a number on the icon indicating the number of blocked items; you sometimes need to click the button to see what's going on and test whether you need to make an exception for this site.

Cache and Cookies: When you have a problem with one particular site, a good "first thing to try" is clearing your Firefox cache and deleting your saved cookies for the site.

(1) Clear Firefox's Cache

See: How to clear the Firefox cache (only select Cached web content, don't clear all cookies and site data)

If you have a large hard drive, this might take a few minutes.

(2) Remove the site's cookies (save any pending work first). While viewing a page on the site, click the lock icon at the left end of the address bar. After a moment, a "Clear Cookies and Site Data" button should appear at the bottom. Go ahead and click that. Firefox will ask you to confirm; go ahead and confirm.

Then try reloading the page. Does that help?

Testing in Firefox's Troubleshoot Mode: In this mode, Firefox temporarily deactivates extensions, hardware acceleration, any userChrome.css/userContent.css files, and some other advanced features to help you assess whether these are causing the problem.

If Firefox is running:

You can restart Firefox in Troubleshoot Mode using either:

  • "3-bar" menu button > Help > Troubleshoot Mode... (before Fx88: Restart with Add-ons Disabled)
  • (menu bar) Help menu > Troubleshoot Mode... (before Fx88: Restart with Add-ons Disabled)

and OK the restart. A small dialog should appear. Click the Open button (before Fx88: "Start in Safe Mode" button).

If Firefox is not running:

Hold down the Shift key when starting Firefox. (On Mac, hold down the option/alt key instead of the Shift key.) A small dialog should appear. Click the Open button (before Fx88: "Start in Safe Mode" button).

Note: Don't use the Refresh without first reviewing this article to understand what will be deleted: Refresh Firefox - reset add-ons and settings.

Any improvement?

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I found a site that easily reproduce this problem with the following link. You don't have to fill in any information. Just click the "I am not a robot..." checkbox, and you will see the spinner never stop in FireFox for Windows 124.0.2 (64-bit). In Chrome, the spinner quickly become a check mark:

https://www.exchangeservicecenter.com/Freeze/#/

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therealandrewhayford said

zeroknight said

Did you try Developer Edition? Try changing DNS over HTTPS (DoH) to "Off" or "Max Protection" and in Connection Settings change "Use system proxy settings" to "No proxy".

Aha! Thank you! Both developer mode and setting DNS to Max fixes the issue.

Strangely, between last night and this morning, this stopped working. I'm back to nothing happening after clicking a Captcha box. Just like Cor-el says, I'm on Windows.

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Hi All, if you are having the problem that the blue spinner never stops and there's no picture popup, this looks like a problem in Google's reCAPTCHA script. The workaround for the moment is to change the way Firefox identifies itself to websites from Firefox for Windows to something else, such as Firefox for Mac or Chrome for Windows. You either can do that with a hidden settings change or with an add-on. Please see the following post for more information:

https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/1446332#answer-1650750

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Hey everyone, Jscher makes a good point. This person who asked this question posted it all the way back in January & it was solved for them. So I'm going to close this thread & point everyone to the most recent thread about this exact problem: Recaptcha Not Working in Firefox Specifically https://support.mozilla.org/questions/1446332

Apologies to the original poster of this getting so many emails from the new reports of Google Recaptcha being broken.

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Hi

Just a quick update to let you know that Google has fixed the issue and you should find that it works now.

Thank you.

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