I get an error that does not exist in Error code reference - browser-error

Question

https://developers.google.com/recaptcha/docs/verify#error_code_reference

I used reCAPTCHA v3 and got an error code not listed in the official documentation.

{
  success : false,
  error-codes : [ "browser-error" ]
}

It's happening only in safari browser.

what is the cause?

Makalu

BROWSER_ERROR means "A retriable error (such as network failure) occurred on the browser. Could easily be simulated by an attacker." (docs) – Amandine

@CoryKramer Is there a way for us to debug this or a guide to preventing this? We have been getting a lot of this. – Mottle

We've been using v3 in production for quite a while now. Without changing anything around that, suddenly on Jan 23rd 2023, the verification started returning this error on a very regular basis (we never saw it before). And it hasn't stopped since then. In our case, some Chrome users are also getting the error, not just Safari users. Users affected by that (<0.5% of our daily active users) will never be able to pass the verification, even after multiple retries (as documented). No idea what's the actual cause and what we should do with that error. – Columbic

Same issue here – Melesa

Facing the same issue – Cop

Anyone managed to find out what the problem was? – Sir

@Sir I didn't investigate that much more on the problem as I left the company since then. But I recall that we decided in the end to simply ignore that error and consider the check as passed in that case. Meaning we allowed the calls even if this error was triggered. We monitored that closely for about a month and it didn't cause issues on our end. If you decide to go along that road, be very careful that it doesn't actually introduce a security issue. – Columbic

Answer 1

This error is mostly about configuring domains so make sure your dashboard have your frontend and backend configured properly and also make sure about sub domains if you have selected the below option on your dashboard.

Vara

This is unfortunately not the case. Even when domains are properly configured, the error still occurs. See the conversation in the comments of the question for more info. – Columbic

do you have above options checked? and when you say origins are proper, have you passed any subdomain or just a domain? @IanLetourneau – Vara

It was checked with domains & subdomains properly configured. Then suddenly the error started to randomly appear (see comments above for more details). So we tried to uncheck the option and it didn't change anything so we added it back. – Columbic