Check our status page for updates on system-wide issues.

When Disqus is loaded on a page for the first time, our servers check the URL on which Disqus is loaded (and the this.page.url configuration variable if it is set) to make sure it's valid and meets certain criteria. When this fails, we show the message “We were unable to load Disqus. ...”

There are several reasons why you may be prompted with this message:

Disqus is being loaded on a non-trusted domain

Trusted domains are sites on which you want your forum shortname to load, and are set within your admin panel. If Disqus isn't loading on your site, make sure your site's domain is in the trusted domains list and is in the proper format.

CORRECT formats:

example.com
subdomain.example.com

INCORRECT formats:

http://www.example.com
example.com/my-blog-name

Your shortname is missing or incorrect

Disqus won't load if you haven't yet registered a forum shortname or if the shortname you have entered is incorrect (See What's a shortname?). We suggest double-checking your shortname in the Disqus embed code, which should appear in place of EXAMPLE in this line: s.src = '//EXAMPLE.disqus.com/embed.js'; of your code, or the settings page for your respective platform.

Disqus is being loaded on a different domain than you registered

By default Disqus is only allowed to load on the domain specified when you originally registered. This is enforced via the Trusted Domains setting. You can add, remove, or change trusted domains at the Disqus admin > Settings > Advanced page.

Recent webhost or domain name change

Allow 48 hours for your new DNS settings to propagate when switching hosts or domains. Even though your site's content is visible, our servers can't connect to your pages in the meantime.

Timeout

Our servers must reach your site within ten seconds.

HTTP status error codes, e.g., 404 Not Found

HTTP status error codes like 404 Not found and 503 Service unavailable can be returned to our servers by your pages even when your page's contents are visible.

Try contacting your host and let them know the status code your pages are returning. You can check header status codes for any page at the WebConfs Header Status Code Checker Tool.

Your page URL or title contains non-ASCII characters

For a URL to verify, it cannot contain non-ASCII "special" characters (e.g., ñ, å, š) which are usually exclusive to one or more languages. Full list of supported ASCII characters.

To fix this, set the this.page.url or this.page.title configuration variable (whichever is appropriate) and make sure to convert non-ASCII characters to ASCII characters in the variable (e.g., å to a, š to s). This will allow your site's visitors to see the proper non-ASCII version and our system can load a thread for the page.

Incorrectly-formatted JavaScript configuration variables

this.page.title cannot be longer than 200 characters.
this.page.url cannot contain spaces.
this.page.url must use an absolute URL; relative URLs won’t work. E.g.,
Good — absolute URL: this.page.url = 'http://example.com/article/1/';
Bad — relative URL: this.page.url = '/article/1/';

Further assistance

If you cannot find your answer, you can contact our support team.