Error

This article or section documents the current version of Scratch (version 3.0). For this article in Scratch 2.0, see Error (2.0).

This article is about errors in Scratch 3.0. For other uses, see Error (disambiguation).

An error is what 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 a project crashed, failed to load, is used with incompatible hardware or software, or is overloaded and cannot handle the project it is running. There are also many errors to do with the Scratch Website. There are many types of errors that can occur.

Project Crash

The error screen that shows up when the project crashes

Main article: Making Scratch Crash

If variables and lists get too long, there are too many clones, or the project is doing too many things at once, the project may crash.

Scratch previously used Sentry to collect errors automatically. When Sentry sent the detail to the Scratch Team privately, an error code was generated and added to the bottom of the error message, for example, "Your error was logged with id 81df2c5a235e853adbf8375dd094b6a8". This changed each time the error was reported, and the ID itself did not give any information without data sent to Sentry.

Paint Editor Crash

If an image is uploaded to the Paint Editor with dimensions larger than 480×360, the paint editor window will crash, but the rest of the Scratch program can still be used.

Scratch Lab

If a Scratch Lab project with experimental extensions is loaded into the normal Scratch editor, the editor will crash.

Loading Error

Sometimes, a project may fail to load. This causes a crash. When Scratch 3.0 was released, there was a bug that caused projects to fail to load. This was fixed a few days later.

Incompatible Software or Hardware

The browser not supported error

Main article: System Requirements

Old operating systems, browsers, or system requirements can cause errors because they are incapable of running Scratch. Users who do not have compatible software or hardware to run Scratch 3.0, can try using Scratch 2.0 or Scratch 1.4 instead.

Script Errors

Main article: Script Error

Scripts can sometimes be made to do impossible things, like dividing by zero or changing the sprite position to a string. When this happens, a script error occurs. Unlike most other errors, they simply skip the block with the error and continue on.

Website (HTTP) Errors

Errors might occur when viewing 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, as an example like when an account with an unverified email tries creating a new post on the Scratch Discussion forums.

404

Main article: 404 Error

The 404 error occurs when a page requested does not exist.

429

Please expand this article or section. You can help by adding more information if you are an editor. More information might be found in a section of the talk page. (January 2023)

The 429 error page.

The 429 error occurs if 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.

500

Main article: 500 Error

The 500 error occurs when an internal error occurs, such as the server not responding, overloaded, or the Scratch Team doing tests without Maintenance Mode.

503

Main article: Maintenance Mode

HTTP 503 (Service Unavailable) is the status code for Maintenance Mode.

Forum Error Page

The page that appears when the forums are down.

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 (also known as X) account; this no longer shows a live feed of updates as Twitter's logged-out feed now orders tweets by the amount of likes.