"Validation of recaptcha failed" but i see no captcha!
April 2, 2022 9:04 AM Subscribe
I see NO Captcha "I am not a robot" on the page. When I click the "Submit" button, then i get the error "Validation of recaptcha failed. Try again" (this error verbiage may possibly vary from site to site but I'm not sure).
Having a problem on some job searching sites when submitting applications (this is the only places i've had this happen). I've used Chrome and Edge.
It's not just one site. It's usually when the job aggregator (Indeed or some other aggregator) sends me to a company-aligned page.
Is this a browser plugin-in problem?
Why is it only certain sites/pages? I certainly do see Captcha on other pages (that is, the "I am not a robot" followed by picking pictures with trucks or whatever, that works perfectly well), so whatever the issue is, it's unique to these particular sites.
Help! This is affecting my job searching!
Having a problem on some job searching sites when submitting applications (this is the only places i've had this happen). I've used Chrome and Edge.
It's not just one site. It's usually when the job aggregator (Indeed or some other aggregator) sends me to a company-aligned page.
Is this a browser plugin-in problem?
Why is it only certain sites/pages? I certainly do see Captcha on other pages (that is, the "I am not a robot" followed by picking pictures with trucks or whatever, that works perfectly well), so whatever the issue is, it's unique to these particular sites.
Help! This is affecting my job searching!
My guess is that it's an ad blocker of some kind and different pages may embed the CAPTCHA in a slightly different way and then you see it sometimes and not others. You should be able to turn off the blocker and reload the page and then see it.
posted by jessamyn at 11:05 AM on April 2, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by jessamyn at 11:05 AM on April 2, 2022 [1 favorite]
Best answer: You may be encountering ReCAPTCHA v3, which neither requires nor allows any sort of active challenge to the user. It runs in the background on the page and does some analysis to decide whether you're likely a bot or not. That's about the extent of my understanding, but that would explain why you're not seeing the challenge even despite trying different browsers.
This article mentions that IP address is one of the things it uses, so maybe you could try a VPN, or submitting applications from another IP address by physically going and using a different network. Try different browsers, turn off plugins... You could also try contacting the sites where you're encountering this and let them know that they may have the threshold for bot detection set too harshly, because you are getting incorrectly locked out, but I doubt that would get the quick action that you need. I feel for you because this sounds incredibly frustrating and I wish I had a more concrete answer!
posted by mandanza at 11:38 AM on April 2, 2022 [3 favorites]
This article mentions that IP address is one of the things it uses, so maybe you could try a VPN, or submitting applications from another IP address by physically going and using a different network. Try different browsers, turn off plugins... You could also try contacting the sites where you're encountering this and let them know that they may have the threshold for bot detection set too harshly, because you are getting incorrectly locked out, but I doubt that would get the quick action that you need. I feel for you because this sounds incredibly frustrating and I wish I had a more concrete answer!
posted by mandanza at 11:38 AM on April 2, 2022 [3 favorites]
Don't have a recommendation about the Captcha, except (as recommended already) try to find the posting on the employer's site's careers page and applying that way. You could also try finding it on LinkedIn. In my experience, sometimes aggregators have outdated job postings for positions that have already closed, so it's best to go through the careers page when possible.
posted by Leontine at 1:47 PM on April 2, 2022
posted by Leontine at 1:47 PM on April 2, 2022
Response by poster: I also had trouble with Google Earth, which gave me an error about not having WebGL enabled. I looked into that error and changed my chrome setting for "Override software rendering list":
Overrides the built-in software rendering list and enables GPU-acceleration on unsupported system configurations. – Mac, Windows, Linux, Chrome OS, Android, Fuchsia
#ignore-gpu-blocklist
This fixed the WebGL Google Earth rendering problem, and I think coincidentally fixed the Captcha problem. After I successfully navigated the job site page i found that yes, the captcha was indeed "invisible", as no robot message ever appeared.
So thank you mandaza for the info about the "invisible" Captcha!!
posted by scorpia22 at 5:51 AM on April 4, 2022 [2 favorites]
Overrides the built-in software rendering list and enables GPU-acceleration on unsupported system configurations. – Mac, Windows, Linux, Chrome OS, Android, Fuchsia
#ignore-gpu-blocklist
This fixed the WebGL Google Earth rendering problem, and I think coincidentally fixed the Captcha problem. After I successfully navigated the job site page i found that yes, the captcha was indeed "invisible", as no robot message ever appeared.
So thank you mandaza for the info about the "invisible" Captcha!!
posted by scorpia22 at 5:51 AM on April 4, 2022 [2 favorites]
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If you notice the problem frequently when you follow job aggregator links, you may find it more useful to not use those links (when possible) - find the company's own webpage and go from there (no guarantees).
posted by mskyle at 9:10 AM on April 2, 2022 [1 favorite]