Web Scraping23 min read

Debugging Scrapers

Learn how to debug broken scrapers using status codes, printing HTML, and browser inspection.

David Miller
Dec 23, 2025
33.7k1,044

Scrapers break often because sites change.

You must know how to debug.

Check status code

res = requests.get(url)
print(res.status_code)

Print partial HTML

print(res.text[:500])

Save page for inspection

with open("page.html", "w", encoding="utf-8") as f:
    f.write(res.text)

Open it in browser and inspect.

Debug flow

flowchart TD
  A[Scraper Fails] --> B[Check Status]
  B --> C[View HTML]
  C --> D[Update Selectors]

Remember

  • Websites change
  • Debugging is part of scraping
#Python#Intermediate#Debugging