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Modified yesterday
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I'm getting "403 Forbidden" for images loading from https://i.sstatic.net

image of 403

I first noticed it for profile pictures, including mine here on meta (which is the link in the image above. When I loaded the picture directly I got a cloudflare captcha. After solving I could view the image directly but this didn't affect loading on stackexchange.

It is also affecting regular images including the one in this post.

Is this just a local issue for me or is this a tightening of rules on the domain?

I'm not using a VPN, I'm just using a static business IP, with windows and chrome.

EDIT: it's affecting chrome logged in and logged out, and logged out in a incognito browser with no extensions. It's not affecting Firefox logged out

Full response headers

Full response headers

Failed response body

Failed response body

From the console it's reporting that it's a NotSameOrigin error

Console Errors

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10
  • In which country are you, maybe it is related to meta.stackexchange.com/questions/413095/…?
    Marijn
    –  Marijn
    2025-10-13 10:35:17 +00:00
    Commented yesterday
  • 1
    @Marijn I don't think so. i.sstatic.net is the stackexchange owned domain they moved to from imgur
    Sam Dean
    –  Sam Dean
    2025-10-13 12:08:32 +00:00
    Commented yesterday
  • What's the Content-Type and response body?
    wizzwizz4
    –  wizzwizz4
    2025-10-13 12:15:26 +00:00
    Commented yesterday
  • @wizzwizz4 added those to the question. I am in the UK
    Sam Dean
    –  Sam Dean
    2025-10-13 12:24:13 +00:00
    Commented yesterday
  • 1
    For the last week or so, a lot of images in pages fail to load initially (both on the main sites & in chat), but they may appear after attempting to open them directly. We discussed this issue here: chat.meta.stackexchange.com/transcript/89?m=10227688#10227688
    PM 2Ring
    –  PM 2Ring
    2025-10-13 13:20:33 +00:00
    Commented yesterday
  • If you open the image in a new tab, how does it respond? When you have that tab open and go to the developer console, can you under application/cookies/i.static.net remove all cookies and reload? Any different headers? Did you get any cf-* named headers? Can you switch network provider / ISP and try again?
    rene
    –  rene Mod
    2025-10-13 13:23:15 +00:00
    Commented yesterday
  • @rene If I open the image then I get a cloudflare captcha and then I can see the image. When on stackexchange.com I have no i.sttatic.net cookies regardless of if it's a browser where I can see them or not. No different headers to the ones in the image. From the same ISP it works in firefox
    Sam Dean
    –  Sam Dean
    2025-10-13 14:03:04 +00:00
    Commented yesterday
  • 4
    So it is a cloudflare issue then. The "you might not be a human" flag got raised by CF on the i.static.net domain but not (yet?) on the stackexchange domain. Given images don't have a mean to present you with a captcha and/.or fingerprint your browser it has no mean to be confident you're not a bot (hence the 403). That changed when you directly visited the image, now CF can send a response with logic in it and potentially a captcha or whatnot. I think SE should discuss with CF if they can handle this scenario more gracefully.
    rene
    –  rene Mod
    2025-10-13 14:19:31 +00:00
    Commented yesterday
  • FWIW, that final "Console Errors" image failed to load for me, until I opened it directly.
    PM 2Ring
    –  PM 2Ring
    2025-10-13 15:40:32 +00:00
    Commented yesterday
  • 2
    Possibly related: meta.stackoverflow.com/q/435178/4014959
    PM 2Ring
    –  PM 2Ring
    2025-10-14 09:15:20 +00:00
    Commented 20 hours ago

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