Crystal Ball checks covered

SNAPSHOT_SCAN, LIVE_URL_SCAN, snapshot limitations

Guide detail

Choose Your Technical Level

This setting applies to the meaning, causes, and fix sections. Your choice carries to other Fix Library guides on this device.

Practical explanations and page-specific steps. Recommended for most readers.

What the flag means

Crystal Ball results can differ between a live URL scan and an HTML snapshot. A URL scan can inspect the server response, redirects, final URL, headers, robots.txt context, response timing, and returned source. A snapshot can inspect only the HTML provided.

Snapshot scans are useful for markup review, but they cannot verify network behavior, external files, or signals that were omitted from the saved document.

Common causes

Differences often come from redirects, server headers, robots rules, cached pages, dynamic rendering, app-injected content, missing assets, copied partial source, or HTML saved before the CMS finished rendering the page.

What to check next

Check whether the issue appears on one page or every page using the same template. Review recent content, theme, plugin, deployment, and server changes, then compare the live output with a known-good page.

How to fix it

Confirm the warning first and make a backup before editing the live site. If the change involves templates, code, DNS, redirects, or server settings, switch to Intermediate or ask for help before proceeding.

  • Custom HTML/static: Use a live URL scan for redirects, headers, robots.txt, response time, and final URL checks. Use an HTML snapshot only for source-code review.
  • WordPress: A copied source snapshot may miss plugin output, server headers, redirects, and cached variants. Scan the live page when possible.
  • Shopify: Snapshots can miss Shopify routing, redirects, robots.txt.liquid behavior, and app-injected content. Use live scans for store pages.
  • Wix: Because Wix pages can be dynamically rendered, a pasted snapshot may not reflect the final live page. Scan the live URL for the best reading.
  • Webflow: Snapshots are useful for static markup review, but live scans catch published-domain settings, redirects, canonical output, and custom code behavior.

Need help?

If the fix gets murky, visit Support and send the details. Bug reports and Crystal Ball questions are free support. Implementation and development work may be paid support, but we will tell you clearly before anything becomes paid. No surprise invoices from the tower.