Chrome proxy not working? Fixes for the common errors

ERR_PROXY_CONNECTION_FAILED

Chrome couldn’t open a connection to the proxy itself. Check the host and port, that your plan is active, and that your network (office, school, VPN) allows that port. Test from another device or with curl -x http://host:port https://api.ipify.org.

ERR_TUNNEL_CONNECTION_FAILED

The proxy answered but refused to tunnel to the HTTPS site. Typical causes: the provider blocks that domain or port, the plan only allows certain targets, or authentication failed on a proxy that reports it this way.

ERR_SOCKS_CONNECTION_FAILED

The SOCKS handshake failed. If the proxy needs a username and password, that is expected — Chrome can’t authenticate SOCKS5. Otherwise check that it really is SOCKS5 and not HTTP on that port.

The login popup keeps coming back

The credentials are being rejected: a typo, an expired plan, or a provider that expects IP whitelisting. With ProxyNest a rejected login shows as “wrong username or password” in the check results instead of a popup loop.

“Your proxy settings are controlled by an extension”

Only one extension can control Chrome’s proxy at a time; the most recently installed one wins. Disable other proxy or VPN extensions in chrome://extensions. ProxyNest shows a warning when another extension has control.

Some sites work, others don’t

Site-specific blocks: the proxy IP may be banned by that site, or your per-site rules send it elsewhere. Run a leak test and check which proxy the site uses.

Still stuck? Inspect Chrome’s view

chrome://net-internals/#proxy shows the effective proxy settings, and chrome://net-export records a network log you can send to your proxy provider.