Scan problems

Scan trouble usually falls into one of four patterns. Work down the matching heading.

Chrome is not detected

Local scans run through Chrome on your machine, so Chrome must be installed first. On Linux, Chromium works as a drop-in.

1. Open Settings > Application.
2. Under Chrome Executable Path, click Detect to auto-find your browser.
3. If Detect finds nothing, paste the path by hand: C:\Program Files\Google\Chrome\Application\chrome.exe on Windows, /Applications/Google Chrome.app/Contents/MacOS/Google Chrome on macOS.
4. Save settings and start the scan again.

API scans do not use Chrome at all, so a missing browser never blocks them.

Scans feel slow

This is by design, not a fault. GeckoGrid runs one scan at a time from a queue, uses 1 to 3 browser tabs, and enforces minimum delays between searches at every concurrency level. Raising concurrency speeds a scan up only modestly, because the pacing protects your IP from bursts that could get searches blocked.

The daily local-scan counter in the sidebar is advisory, and past 40 local scans in a day the engine automatically steps concurrency down to its safest level until local midnight. When speed or volume matters, API scans are the fast path: they run from DataForSEO’s infrastructure, skip local pacing, and finish in seconds to minutes.

A scan is stuck or failed

Failures show their reason in the project instead of a bare failed status. Transient problems are retried for you: the center grid point retries once with a backoff, browser launches retry once, and interrupted API fetches stay pending for a later retry.

If a scan stalls or fails repeatedly:

1. Open the Logs page and filter by the Scans category to see what happened.
2. Cancel the scan, then start it again once the cause is cleared.
3. For repeated local failures, close other Chrome windows and confirm the Chrome path in Settings > Application.

Results look wrong

Three things most often explain surprising numbers:

• Sponsored listings: the Ignore Sponsored Listings toggle in Settings > Results controls whether Google’s paid listings are counted.
• The top 20 ceiling: each grid point tracks at most the top 20 listings, and a business outside a point’s top 20 is not tracked there.
• Engine differences: local scans and API scans observe Google from different vantage points, your IP versus DataForSEO’s infrastructure, so numbers can differ between engines. Compare like for like when following a trend. See how scans run.