When browser OCR fails

This guide covers the tool not working at all: the reader will not start, a file will not open, the tab stalls, or nothing comes back. If text came back but it is wrong, go to fix messy OCR instead.

When browser OCR fails, it rarely fails in a mysterious way. The engine files never finish downloading. The language data never arrives. The PDF never opens. The file is not a supported type. The device runs out of memory on a huge batch.

Screenshot2Text runs open-source OCR in your browser. There is no server queue we can check to see your file. Triage happens on your side with a short checklist. That is the privacy model working as designed.

Watch the status line in the tool. A normal run moves through Getting ready, Enhancing image, and Reading text, then says Done. The first run, and the first run in a new language, also downloads the OCR engine and language data from a public CDN, so it takes longer.

If you see "OCR failed. Try another file." right away, even on a clean screenshot, the engine files most likely could not download. A different file will not fix that. We saw exactly this message when we blocked the CDN in a test browser. Reload once on a normal connection. If it still fails, try another browser or network, since a strict content filter, a script blocker, or a corporate proxy can block the download or strip WebAssembly and workers.

Check the file type. The tool reads PNG, JPG, WebP, GIF, BMP, and PDF. Anything else gets "Please drop a PNG, JPG, WEBP, GIF, BMP, or PDF." A renamed file with the wrong contents will not become an image.

Only one run happens at a time. If you drop a new file while a run is still going, you will see "Still reading. Wait for this run to finish, or press Stop."

If the drop zone is covered by an ad unit on a small viewport, resize the window or try a larger screen and tell us via Contact with the URL and device details. Layout bugs are fixable. We still will not ask you to email the file.

The first page of a PDF shows in the preview before any text appears. If it never shows, OCR has nothing to read. The error line names the file and the reason. A damaged download, or a file that is not really a PDF, shows "Invalid PDF structure." A password-locked PDF will not open here either.

PDFs need one more download: a page-rendering script that loads on the first PDF run. If that is blocked, the error line mentions a worker or a failed fetch. The fix is the same as for the engine files: reload on a normal connection or try another browser.

A page that fails to render is skipped so the rest of the document can finish. The status line then says Done, with a few skips, and the error line names the page. Export that page on its own and run it again.

If the result area says "No readable text in that file.", the tool loaded and ran but found no words. The fix is in the image, not the browser. How to get better OCR from screenshots covers the capture.

If text came back but it is wrong, jumbled, or missing lines, the tool worked and the image was a poor fit for OCR. Fix messy OCR matches each symptom to a fix.

Local OCR uses your CPU and memory. Symptoms look like a busy tab, a long hang on page four of a PDF, or a mobile browser reload.

Shrink the job. Split the PDF. Downsample huge scanner pages that do not need photo DPI for text. Close other tabs. Avoid dropping dozens of 10 megapixel camera originals in one batch. Use a desktop browser for large packets when a phone tab keeps dying.

Press Stop to end a long run. The text found so far stays in the box.

This ceiling is not a hidden paywall. Recognition stays on your device. We are not running your pixels on a GPU cluster. If you need that throughput and you are allowed to upload, use a hosted converter. If you need offline bulk OCR under IT policy, use an approved desktop package.

Failure is not "the ad stole your text." Ad code does not receive your image or the extracted string. Failure is not "we lost your file on the server." We did not hold the file. Failure is not a prompt to pay. Screenshot2Text has no paywall and does not charge for OCR.

If something looks like a billing wall, you are on the wrong site or looking at a browser extension spoof. Confirm you are on screenshot2text.com.

Privacy details live on the privacy page. Operator context lives on About. Mail goes to hello@screenshot2text.com without attachments.

Reload once on a normal connection so the engine and language files can download.

Check that the file is a PNG, JPG, WebP, GIF, BMP, or PDF, and that a PDF's first page shows in the preview.

Try one image or one page before a long batch.

If the tab stalls, close other tabs, split big PDFs, or move the job to a desktop browser.

If it still will not start, try another browser or network in case a filter is blocking downloads.

If text comes back but it is wrong, switch to fix messy OCR.

If policy requires upload-free processing and the source is still hopeless (handwriting, severe blur), switch to a human transcript or an approved specialized tool.

We will not claim courtroom perfection. We will not claim that every device can run every job; a phone tab has far less memory than a desktop. We will not build a pay gate that pretends limits are temporary.

Browser OCR fails in predictable ways. Most start-up and stall problems come down to a blocked download, a file the browser cannot open, or a job too big for the device, and all three are fixable. When the tool loads and the file is sharp printed text, Screenshot2Text is free, local, and plain about what it can do.