Pinterest sometimes returns a strange error page with the message: {"status": "404"}. I refreshed many times when I encountered this error, but no luck, it kept on displaying the error. This post throws light on what this error is and how it can be fixed.

Why am I seeing this error?

{"status": "404"} looks like strange programming error. I mean when it occurs, it redirects pinterest.com or www.pinterest.com to api.pinterest.com, where you see this message. If you look at 404, you can assume that page, or Pinterest API, doesn’t exist. Bummer.

Pinterest Status 404 Error
This is how it looks like

This error message basically means Pinterest is down; and it’s API is offline right now. The cause could be server maintenance or outages.

The FIX

“Okay, how can I fix it up?” I got this error on Firefox browser, and I was not sure why it is prompting a 404 kind of error. But I tried a few things that fixed it for me, and I hope they will work for you as well:

  • Visit Pinterest, if you see the error, press Ctrl + F5 (Windows) or Command + F5 key combination to hard refresh your browser window. This will clear the cached version of Pinterest; and if it is up, it will start loading.
  • Try visiting Pinterest on a different web browser. I was surprised to see it loading on Chrome and not on Firefox, even after hard-refreshing…! I’m clueless here.
  • Try visiting the Pinterest login page instead of the homepage. I was again shown with the error page when I tried logging in from the login page, but still you too should give it a try if the above two didn’t work for you.
  • You may also try clearing your local DNS cache. Windows users may do it by navigating to Start » Command Prompt » type ipconfig /flushdns and hit return key. If you have a different OS, look at the help guides about clearing DNS cache.
  • In case you’re getting this error page again-and-again after trying above mentioned solutions, consider switching to Google DNS or Open DNS from the default DNS of your ISP.

Still, above fixes are not the guaranteed solutions – they are just a few ways that may or may not work – it depends on Pinterest servers actually that how long it may take to see the social network working again.

Hope this article has helped you to what it is meant for. Let me know if I missed something that you know about this error.