New Google Search Console does not load any resources such as CSS and JS while it worked fine in the old Search Console tool

Question

When using URL inspection and Live Test in the new Google Search Console the Googlebot does not load most resources (Javascript, CSS and Images). This results in the Search Console telling me my pages are not mobile friendly (because the CSS is not loaded). When looking at the Live Screenshot the pages look like plain, unstyled HTML.

I tested multiple websites, some created by strangers, others created by me, some hosted on my server, others hosted on servers of major hosting services. On all of these websites the problem occurs.

For every website multiple Live Tests were performed. Sometimes all resources were loaded perfectly, but most of the time (>90%) nearly all of the resources (including resources hosted by Google, e.g. Analytics or Google Fonts) did not get loaded. The Search Console simply marks it as "Other Error"

When using the old Search Console, the websites get marked as "mobile friendly" and are rendered normally. PageSpeed Insights and the new Google Mobile Friendly Test also render the pages perfectly fine.

The resources are not blocked by the Robots.txt. I also tried explicitly allowing the Googlebot to access CSS, JS and images. It did not help.

I've read speculations, that the new Search Console simulates a very slow mobile connection, but I've created very lightweight dummy-websites whose resources are not getting loaded as well.

How can I get the new Search Engine Console to load my resources?

Solution

I had the same problem today, which led me to this forum.

I eliminated everything in the robots.txt file except for User-agent: *and the problem is partially fixed. It is still not loading CSS correctly, but the page shows up in Google's tester as being mobile friendly and it shows up perfectly on everyone's phone.

Comments

[Simon Hayter]

Could not be loaded is different from 'Blocked' and Google Console 'Live' feature is not 100% correct, in fact, I've justed over 20 sites and I can verify that all report Other error on jpeg files, therefore, nothing to worry about. Give Google a month to fix things.

[erkor]

Thanks! Wow, I'm glad it was not my fault. Surprisingly I couldn't find anything regarding this error in the Google forums.

[vladimir]

got same problem, received 'New Mobile Usability issues' email, while checked live url got same issue with non loading .js, .css and some image files, so page looks unformatted although it says 'Mobile Friendly' checked in chrome auditor, and all loading fine. looks completely console issue.

[Marius]

Same issue here! Hope google will fix it fast.

[Stephen Ostermiller]

See also: What does it mean when Google Search Console URL inspection says resources don't load due to “other error”?