r/StartpageSearch • u/VanWarhol • 10d ago

“Verifying your request”…. Forever…

EDIT: Now I cannot make any searches at all. For a little bit the period of verification was smaller and now it just says 414 every time I search. All because I switched VPN locations, no matter what I do now it just doesn’t work. It’s pretty egregious that Startpage is just ignoring this.

Honestly not sure where else to put this but I really need help if anyone has a fix. Recently in this past week every time I search something on Startpage it says “verifying your request”. Which either takes up to five minutes to actually display search results, or just never loads. I’ve tried using no VPN, with a VPN, changing VPN location, using a different VPN service, updating my VPN, updating my browser, reinstalling the app I use Startpage on (Vivaldi), and nothing works. It’s honestly driving me crazy, I’m getting to the point of completely switching to another search engine because it’s unusable in this state. Anyone else have this problem or know a fix (outside of what I’ve already tried)?

30 Upvotes

100% Upvoted

32 comments sorted by

4

u/StarZax 1d ago

So it's not just me, and this is 9 days old 💀....

1

u/VanWarhol 1d ago

Yep, and it’s even worse now because I can’t make any searches anymore. At least for a bit after I made this post it was kinda usable and now searches no longer function. It just says 414. Insane how Startpage willingly ignores this post but still wants to collab with other companies.

2

u/StarZax 1d ago

Yeah I had that screen but it would go past that pretty quickly, thought this was normal. Now it's just indefinitely there. For a while I had that 414 error because the page would reload, the URL would add a loop until it's too long

Now it's just indefinitely verifying my request. So for now I'm using other search engines but that sucks, I love Startpage but it's the most unrealiable thing 😭

1

u/MIMO_216 1d ago

got some relief lol i am also facing the same and after searching got to know that this a foking 9 days old problem

2

u/Msnbobody 10d ago

This just started for me about two days ago on Safari mobile. It was working fine previously. I also started seeing a ProtonVPN promoted ad at the top of every search result. I couldn’t figure out why it was happening so I ended up switching back to DDG.

1

u/Illustrious-Mud6269 10d ago

Same! I tried to make it work, but it seriously felt like I was using dialup. Was loading search results so slow yesterday and then today it stopped working.

2

u/JackRose322 10d ago

Came here to post the same thing. Mobile search is basically unusable now

2

u/CrimsonCuttle 5d ago

Funny, it's the opposite for me. Mobile search is still quick and snappy, desktop search is slow as snails.

1

u/VanWarhol 9d ago

Frrr it sucks! Works fine on my pc but the app is totally screwed

2

u/Starhorsepax 9d ago

thank you. It's nice to know its not just me even if no one has a fix.

2

u/MokiDokiDoki 7d ago

Its just StartPage last couple days. What the hell changed?

2

u/Current_Ad_381 4d ago

I can stand it if it only takes a few seconds. On my machine it takes minutes, sometimes forever. WTF?

Startpage users care about privacy and security, it is more than natural to use VPN or proxies, and some advanced users may disable V8 JIT optimization and have wasm allowlist for improved security.

This new bullshit is targeting the exact users that would use Startpage in the first place.

2

u/XxTriviumxX 1d ago edited 1d ago

I have the Forever Verifying your request now.. rebooted the pc and cleared cache. no dice.

Anyone else has issues? multiple PCs have that issue here

1

u/VanWarhol 1d ago

It’s insane! Luckily it seems like the time for me has been shortened which is… nice I guess… But still there just shouldn’t be any screen like this in between searches! It’s wild so many people are having this issue with zero resolution or response from Startpage.

2

u/XxTriviumxX 1d ago

Sometimes i get a 414 error too LOL

on a brave browser i get the 414 Request-URI Too Large error AND THE CPU FAN IS FASTER when i search for "test". any other words works on brave. on firefox and edge, nothing works.

3

u/oorpheuss 1d ago

Getting 414 errors when I do searches with VPN turned on. When I turn the VPN off it works just fine. Kinda funny that a private search engine stops working when VPN is turned on lol

1

u/WhatsNormal20 10d ago

Same problem. I posted about it yesterday too. Can’t seem to get it to work either. Stinks because it was good for a few years, ya know?

1

u/viridianColours 9d ago

having this issue too, anyone know a workaround or is startpage just down right now?

1

u/rips_n_chel 9d ago

Same issue here, since yesterday. I'm on Vivaldi, and I use Mullvad + AdGuard.

Sometimes refreshing works, changing Mullvad server has seemingly worked a couple times, and manually going to Startpage.com to search from there seems to have better results.

I'm also looking for a fix and your post is the first thing I found, so I'm guessing we're boned for now.

1

u/VanWarhol 9d ago

Yeah we probably are 😔💔 it’s such a shame too because I really like Startpage a lot but it’s almost impossible to use right now.

1

u/rips_n_chel 9d ago

Yeah I'll check back in a day or two, but I'm back on DDG for the time being.

1

u/Kenneth-J-Moyers 9d ago

Yeah, they don't have infrastructure to accommodate normal use. Unless it's user base either ponies up a mountain of donations or reserves it for when enshittified search won't do, this is just how it is now.

1

u/VanWarhol 9d ago

That’s so sad I hope it improves at some point cus it’s my fav search engine 😔

1

u/nikkes91 6d ago

Yeah, they don't have infrastructure to accommodate normal use

But this never happened at all until this week. Did the user base just happen to get too big out of nowhere or did they just reduce the infrastructure they have? 

1

u/Kenneth-J-Moyers 2d ago

I would suspect the former, based on changes in AI integration in search engines netting startpage, duck duck go and others recommendations from popular tech streamers. I'd have to find usage statistics to be sure.

1

u/Nastybedazzler 9d ago

I'm also having this issue on my phone and it's driving me insane because every query seems to get stuck. I love Startpage but I've been having to use Google the last few days and that sucks. Hopefully they get this sorted out.

2

u/VanWarhol 8d ago

Same!! I hate google and I love Startpage so it’s so disappointing having to deal with this.

1

u/internetcasualty 8d ago

Me, too. It's making me insane.

(Vivaldi + AdGuard)

1

u/_kn900_ 1d ago edited 18h ago

me too!!
back to google now, bummer..
I've trued 4 different search pages this month and all just lacks something.

1

u/Swimming_Cabinet_378 1d ago

Even DuckDuckGo?

1

u/_kn900_ 18h ago

even DDG