# How to know when your app is down

> Five things take a web app offline: the host, an expired SSL certificate, a lapsed domain, changed DNS and broken links. How to spot each one yourself.

Most apps built with Lovable, Replit, Bolt or v0 go offline for one of five reasons: the host is down, the SSL certificate expired, the domain lapsed, the DNS changed, or an edit broke links. You can check each yourself in a few minutes, and set reminders for the ones that expire.

## The host is down

When your platform has an outage, or your app crashes, visitors get an error or a page that never loads.

Check it yourself: open your app on your phone with Wi-Fi off, since your laptop may show a saved copy. Your platform's status page tells you whether the outage is theirs.

## The SSL certificate expired

The SSL certificate puts the padlock in the address bar. It expires every few months and renews automatically; when renewal fails, browsers show a full-page warning such as "Your connection is not private".

On a platform address (like `myapp.lovable.app`) the platform handles this. On your own domain, renewal usually needs your DNS to keep pointing at the platform, so a DNS change can quietly stop it.

Check it yourself: in Chrome, click the icon left of the address, then **Connection is secure**, then **Certificate is valid** to see the expiry date.

## The domain lapsed

You rent your domain (`myapp.com`) from a registrar, usually a year at a time. If the card on file expired or the renewal email went to an old inbox, the domain stops working, and after a grace period someone else can buy it.

Check it yourself: look up the expiry date on [ICANN Lookup](https://lookup.icann.org) (for some endings, such as `.nl`, use your registrar's dashboard). Turn on auto-renew and put the date in your calendar a month early.

## The DNS changed

DNS is the internet's address book: it tells browsers which servers your domain belongs to. One wrong record and your domain points nowhere, or your email stops arriving, typically after moving registrars, switching email providers or a mistaken edit.

Check it yourself: screenshot your DNS records at your registrar now, while everything works, and compare when something breaks. [Google's Dig tool](https://toolbox.googleapps.com/apps/dig/) shows what the rest of the internet sees.

## An edit broke links

When an AI builder renames a page or reworks the menu, it can leave links to pages that no longer exist. A related problem is mixed content: an image or script loaded over `http://` on your `https://` page, which browsers block.

Check it yourself: after each larger change, click through every menu item and button on the published app. Mixed content shows up in Chrome's console (**View → Developer → JavaScript Console**) as a "Mixed Content" warning.

## How Lampwick does it for you

[Lampwick](/for/ai-built-apps/) runs these checks from its own servers, outside your platform, and alerts you by iPhone push and email, or in Slack, Discord, Microsoft Teams or a webhook:

| What breaks | What Lampwick does | When you hear |
|---|---|---|
| Host down | Opens your URL every 5 minutes (Free) to every 30 seconds | After two failed checks in a row: *Down: My app* |
| SSL certificate | Reads it every 6 to 12 hours | 14, 7, 3 and 1 days before expiry, and when it becomes invalid |
| Domain | Looks up the expiry date daily | 30, 14, 7 and 1 days before |
| DNS | Reads the main records hourly | *DNS records changed*, with what changed |
| Broken links | Follows the links on up to 250 pages daily | When the crawl finds new broken links or mixed content |

You paste your URL; your app stays as it is. Lampwick checks whether your app loads, not whether a button inside it works. For errors inside it, add the [browser error snippet](/docs/browser/): one line in `index.html`, which an AI app builder can add for you.

Next step: [set it up for your app](/for/ai-built-apps/#set-it-up-without-code).