Web browsers have come a long way from the clunky old text-based browsers they used back when the internet was new. Browsers these days are quite versatile and are able to keep up with the rapidly developing web frameworks of the time.

That said, there are still random bugs and glitches that web browsers run into from time to time. In this article, we’re talking about how 406 errors in browsers, their causes and what you can do to fix the problem.

What causes a 406 error?

406 errors generally arise when a server can’t generate a response that matches the request’s acceptable values. The values are defined in a request’s proactive content negotiation headers and the server either can’t produce an acceptable response or isn’t offering a default value either.

The error is rarely used in practice and the server more often than not just ignores the errors and serves the ser a particular page. However, if the server does respond with this error code, the body of the message usually contains a list of available options for the user to pick.

How to fix a 406 error?

Here are six fixes you can try out.

Check your request

The first thing you should do in such cases is to check your request URL to ensure that everything’s in order. You can check the URL for possible typos or even check to see if a different subdomain of the same website is providing a response.

Refresh the page

At times you may also see this message because a page wasn’t able to load properly due to the network switching. In such cases, try refreshing the page to see if you can get the page to load.

Check your DNS settings

If you’re running custom DNS settings on purpose or by mistake, having them set incorrectly can cause such issues too. Flushing your DNS settings can set them back to the default values and resolve such issues. Here’s how.

Step 1: Press Windows key + R, type cmd and hit the Enter key.

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Step 2: Type in ipconfig /flushdns and hit enter. This will reset your DNS settings to their defaults.

You can take this a step further and reset Windows files to access the internet by using these commands back to back.

netsh winsock reset
netsh int ip reset

If you suspect an issue with your router’s DHCP assignment, use these commands to release your old IP and request a new one.

ipconfig /release
ipconfig /renew

If that doesn’t work either, you can use the following commands in the order that they’re listed to reset your network stack.

ipconfig/flushdns
nbtstat -R
nbtstat -RR
netsh int ip reset C:\resetlog.txt
netsh winsock reset

Check your Plugins, Themes and Extensions

If you’re running a CMS like WordPress, check to see if any plugins, extensions or themes are causing this issue. Sometimes new plugins can interfere with a server configuration causing it to respond in arbitrary values that aren’t accepted by a client-side request.

Additionally, corrupt or malfunctioning browser extensions often cause many problems, including this one.

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Head over to chrome://extensions and try disabling all your extensions to check if the browser starts functioning as normal again; if it does, enable them one by one until you have all the essential extensions working again.

Check your database for conflicts

Most websites have some sort of database powering the backend and serving content based on what’s requested. If there are conflicts or issues in the database, there’s a good chance that you might get a 406 error when requesting the database for a specific item or running a particular query.