What happened?
| If this sounds like it | What is going on | Go here |
|---|---|---|
| "I just turned it off." | The most common one, and not a moral failure. Most controls have no lock at all unless someone else holds a passcode. | Stop it being switched off and Trusted person |
| "I used a different browser." | Some filters only cover one browser, or one account. | Remove the extra browsers, then filter at the device level so it does not matter which browser is open |
| "It worked at home but not on my phone." | Router filtering does not follow the phone onto mobile data. | Mobile data and hotspots |
| "I found it inside Instagram, or another app." | Pages opened inside apps usually leave no trace in browser history, though on iPhone they are still filtered. | Allowlist mode to block it, Accountability to see it |
| "I searched for a way around the filter and found one." | A relay site is not itself in the blocked category, so a category filter lets it through. | Turn on the anti-circumvention settings |
| "I changed the DNS back." | On a phone this takes four taps and asks for no password. | Stop it being switched off |
| "I installed something." | A VPN, a proxy, another browser, or an app with its own browser inside it. | Block installs in Guardrails, and see Apps and platforms |
| "I reset the phone, or the router." | A reset clears device-level settings unless the account or management layer survives it. | Recovery audit |
| "I knew the password, so I just changed it." | Then you did not have a lock, you had a preference. This is the most important one on the page. | Trusted person and Recovery audit |
| "I reset it through the recovery email." | Recovery routes undo everything else. On iPhone, the account named at the Screen Time recovery prompt can reset the passcode. | Recovery audit |
| "I used a different device." | An old phone, a tablet in a drawer, a work laptop, a console, a smart TV. | Inventory every screen in Recovery audit, then Apps and platforms |
| "Nothing got through. I just could not stop scrolling." | A different problem, and filters are the wrong tool for it. | Shrink the window |
| "It seemed to stop working and I do not know why." | Setups usually fail by quietly reverting rather than dramatically breaking. | Check it is still switched on |
Two things worth knowing before you add anything
Fix the one gap, then stop
The instinct after a failure is to add more layers everywhere. That usually produces a setup too complicated to maintain, which fails again for a different reason. Close the specific hole, test it, and leave it alone for a fortnight.
Ask who holds the key
If the honest answer to "how did I get around it" is "I just changed the setting," then no additional technique will help, because you will change that one too. The fix is a person, not a tool. That is not the answer anyone wants and it is almost always the right one.
If you got through and you are not sure how, run Test your setup and note which test fails. That tells you which line above is yours.