Why is "Please unblock challenges.cloudflare.com to proceed." trending? What does it mean? Here's what we know so far

Please unblock challenges.cloudflare.com to proceed: Online services such as ChatGPT and Claude faced massive disruption affecting a number of websites, which have now been fixed. ChatGPT, Anthropic’s Claude, Perplexity, Downdetector, and other websites suffered major outages due to a bug in Cloudflare’s servers. The issue began around 6:00 AM ET (4:30 PM IST) on November 18 and quickly spread worldwide. Cloudflare, which many websites use for security and faster performance, confirmed that a technical failure caused widespread 500 errors and API issues across multiple platforms. Data from Downdetector showed the outage growing rapidly as more services were affected.“Please unblock challenges.cloudflare.com to proceed.” error message decodedMany users visiting different websites were met with a confusing message: “Please unblock challenges.cloudflare.com to proceed.” This error comes from Cloudflare’s security system, which is meant to verify users and block harmful traffic. In this case, the system itself malfunctioned, stopping users from accessing working websites.According to a message on the Cloudflare community, this error indicates that something on the user’s end is blocking Cloudflare’s security tool, which protects the website. This could be a local firewall, a browser extension, or another security tool on the user’s device or network. Only the user can identify and unblock it.Cloudflare responds to major outageIn an official statement, Cloudflare confirmed the issue, saying: "Cloudflare is aware of, and investigating an issue which impacts multiple customers: Widespread 500 errors, Cloudflare Dashboard and API also failing. We are working to understand the full impact and mitigate this problem."Later updates noted that services were gradually recovering, but users might still face higher-than-normal error rates as the team continued to fix the problem.Also read: Misplaced your Aadhaar card or forgot number? Recover it online for FREE - Check step-by-step guide