When you are trying to access a page and is showing ERR_CONNECTION_TIMED_OUT.
Google Chrome, Firefox, and Edge all recommend that you should check your network connection. While this might sound obvious, they all point to checking your connection first as it s one of the most common reasons for the error. Here are a few things we recommend:
Firewalls and antivirus software are intended to protect users and their systems. They scan your device regularly and automatically block any suspicious activity. However, this type of security can at times lead to connection issues.
This is because firewalls can often block pages they don t need to or reject content that is completely safe. We've seen this happen many times with software like AVG. To check whether this is the case for you, try disabling your firewall and antivirus programs. Of course, this is only advised if you know for sure that the site you re intending to visit is safe.
Additionally, you should only disable this kind of software temporarily. Switch it back on after you've finished checking to see whether the error has been resolved, so you don't become vulnerable to attacks. If you repeatedly encounter errors because of your firewall or antivirus software, you may want to consider changing what you're using.
Sometimes you might see the ERR_CONNECTION_TIMED_OUT error if you are utilizing a proxy service. This is usually pretty rare, especially on the client-side. However, one might have been set without you even knowing it. To disable or check to ensure no proxy settings are enabled, follow these steps.
The next thing you can try is changing your DNS servers. By default, DNS servers are automatically assigned by your ISP. But you could try temporarily changing these to a public DNS server, such as Google or Cloudflare.
Tip: If you're already using a free DNS server and having issues, removing it and defaulting back to your ISP's DNS servers also sometimes fix things.
Google and Cloudflare aren't perfect 100% of the time and there have been a few instances where we've noticed switching back has resolved the issue. This is especially true if you re using a Wifi hotspot in an airport or coffee shop.
You can also try flushing your local DNS cache. This is similar to clearing your browser cache. It could be that the site you re trying to visit isn't resolving to the correct IP address. If you've just migrated your WordPress site to a new host, it s important to wait for things to fully propagate. This can sometimes take up to 24 hours, although it can be as little as a few minutes. This depends on your DNS provider and the TTL value of your DNS records.
Every computer has what they call a local hosts file. This is a file that contains manual DNS entries which are mapped to specific IP addresses. Typically this is only edited when you want to preview your DNS before switching over domains to a new host.
There is a multitude of different ways this file could have been changed or edited. Therefore, it s always good to check to ensure the website you re trying to access isn't in there.
You should also verify that the DNS of your domain is correctly pointed to your hosting provider. If you're a Kinsta client we have an in-depth post on how to point your domain and or DNS to Kinsta. If you recently migrated your WordPress website to a new host, it could be the DNS was cached incorrectly on your computer. In which case, step 5 above should resolve that. Or it may simply be too soon and you need to wait a few hours for the DNS to fully propagate.
Web browsers store information in cache on your computer. This includes your browsing history, saved login data, and cookies - all of which are recorded in order to load the relevant pages more quickly the next time they're visited.
Although they're useful, caches can cause numerous issues when they become outdated. Fortunately, this problem is easily solved by clearing your cache.
But before you do that, you can easily check to see if it's a browser cache issue by first opening up your browser in incognito mode. Or you can try a different browser. If you're still seeing the error, then you will want to proceed with clearing your cache.
The resulting screen should grant you access to the same options we've outlined above. Here are some other helpful links for clearing cache:
An ERR_CONNECTION_TIMED_OUT error typically means there is something wrong with your local network connection. However, that's not always the case.
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Wed Oct 22 2025 08:59:29 GMT+0000 (Coordinated Universal Time)