Try or ByeTry or Bye

Hotjar Recordings Blank or Missing CSS

Workaround available Web Updated October 21, 2026

Quick answer

Recordings that look unstyled or broken usually mean Hotjar cannot fetch your CSS, fonts or images. Allow *.hotjar.com and Hotjar's IPs to access those assets; fully blank playback is a rendering error support must investigate.

Most likely fix: Let Hotjar fetch your assets.

Symptoms

Playback shows a white or black screen, unstyled HTML, missing images, or black boxes where iframes or videos should be.

Why it happens

  • Stylesheets, fonts or images behind a login, IP allow list, referrer or geo checks
  • Server returning 403 to Hotjar when it fetches assets
  • Iframes and video player state cannot be replayed
  • Hotjar failed to render specific DOM changes in that session

How to fix it

Try these in order — the most common fix is first.

  1. 1. Let Hotjar fetch your assets

    1. Allow *.hotjar.com and insights.hotjar.com to load your CSS, fonts and images
    2. Add Hotjar's IP addresses to any server allow list
    3. Make public stylesheets accessible without login

  2. 2. Check the console while playing a recording

    1. Open developer tools on the recording player
    2. Look for 403 or CORS errors on your asset URLs and fix them on your server

  3. 3. Accept iframe and video limits

    1. Iframes and embedded video controls show as black boxes; install Hotjar inside the iframe's own site if you control it

  4. 4. Contact support for blank playback

    1. If the player never loads, send the recording link to Hotjar/Contentsquare support

This guide also covers

  • hotjar recording blank
  • hotjar recordings broken
  • hotjar recording no css
  • hotjar recording black screen

Still not working?

If Hotjar keeps failing, you're not alone. See every Hotjar problem users report or the alternatives people switch to.

Other Hotjar errors