Common vendor website bugs and workarounds

Spent time on multiple vendor sites troubleshooting issues that turned out to have known workarounds. Documenting them here since the same patterns appear across different vendor platforms.

Upload button that does nothing

Symptom: click the photo upload button and nothing happens — no file picker opens. Most common cause: a browser extension (particularly ad blockers or script blockers) is preventing the click event from registering. Fix: disable extensions for the vendor domain or use an incognito window with extensions disabled by default. Second cause: Safari iOS and some versions of Firefox have intermittent compatibility issues with non-standard file input implementations. Switch to Chrome mobile if the site works on desktop but not Safari.

CAPTCHA that never loads

Vendor sites that use Google reCAPTCHA occasionally fail to display the challenge entirely. Cause: VPN IP addresses are frequently flagged by reCAPTCHA systems as suspicious and the challenge fails silently. Fix: disable VPN temporarily for the order completion step, complete the CAPTCHA, then re-enable. Alternative: use a VPN server in a residential IP range rather than a datacenter range.

Session timeout during long orders

If you spend a long time on the order form — taking photos, gathering information — some vendor sites time out the session and lose form data when you submit. Fix: fill in the order form in a separate document first, then paste fields in quickly. Alternatively, open the order form, do not interact with it, and complete it in a single fast session.

Payment amount mismatch

Some vendor payment pages calculate the crypto amount at checkout time and display a countdown timer because the rate will change. If you take too long to complete the payment step, the quoted amount may expire and need to be refreshed. Refresh the payment page before sending rather than sending the amount shown several minutes earlier.