7.1What is a browser monitor

A browser monitor opens your site in a real web browser. It then does what a visitor would do. It opens pages, clicks buttons, types into fields and checks what the page shows.

In the dashboard, the browser type says: "Drive a real browser through a scripted flow with secret references." A script is the list of steps the browser follows.

A browser monitor works in one of two ways:

• Without a script: it opens the start URL once and checks the page that loads.
• With a script: it runs your steps in order. The first step that fails ends the check. That step's error becomes the result.

Each check has one of three results:

• Up: every step passed.
• Down: a step failed, a page answered with an error, or the check ran out of time.
• Degraded: every step passed, but the check was slower than the slow-response limit you set through the API (degradedAfterMs, see 3.1). It can also be far slower than usual while latency anomalies is on (see 9.2). The message looks like slow: took 8200ms, the limit is 5000ms.

Sometimes obsrvly itself cannot run the check. Then you see one of these messages. They are not a problem with your site, and you do not need to change anything.

• "The check could not be run: the browser did not start, or stopped before the check finished. This is a fault on our side, not on your site."
• "The check could not be run: a secret it uses could not be read. This is a fault on our side, not on your site."
• "The check could not be run: its settings did not reach the browser runner. This is a fault on our side, not on your site."