# WebTunnel bridge unavailable
**URL:** https://forum.torproject.org/t/webtunnel-bridge-unavailable/21059
**Category:** Relay Operator
**Tags:** webtunnel, bridge
**Created:** [January 5, 2026, 10:16am UTC](https://forum.torproject.org/t/webtunnel-bridge-unavailable/21059 "2026-01-05T10:16:09Z")
**Posts on this page:** 3
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@jabdoa2](https://forum.torproject.org/u/jabdoa2)
#### Post date: [January 5, 2026, 10:16am UTC](https://forum.torproject.org/t/webtunnel-bridge-unavailable/21059/1 "2026-01-05T10:16:10Z")
I run two WebTunnel bridges. Both of them are periodically shown as offline in Relay Search. Is that expected? I could not find anything regarding that in the documentation. Should I worry?
This seems to be common for a lot of WebTunnel bridges. When my bridge is marked offline there are usually a lot other ones marked as offline: [Relay Search](https://metrics.torproject.org/rs.html#search/transport:webtunnel) . They tend to start at nearly the same time an last for almost the same duration. Is something broken in general?
In bridge status my bridge recently started to show this:
Bridge xxx advertises:
`* vanilla IPv4: dysfunctional`
` Error: timed out waiting for bridge descriptor`
` Last tested: 2026-01-05 08:xx:xx.xx +0000 UTC (10mxxs ago)`
This has not been there for the last few days. It started between 2026-01-03 and 2026-01-04.
When I test my own bridge is works fine. Still very low traffic on both bridges. Feels like running a WebTunnel bridge requires a lot of magic knowledge than the call for bridges or the tutorial + docs suggest. Or should I just leave it running and not care at all?
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### Author:  [@unic3rn](https://forum.torproject.org/u/unic3rn)
#### Post date: [January 6, 2026, 12:56am UTC](https://forum.torproject.org/t/webtunnel-bridge-unavailable/21059/2 "2026-01-06T00:56:43Z")
Might be similar to [Can connect to my bridge, but metrics shows always offline](https://forum.torproject.org/t/can-connect-to-my-bridge-but-metrics-shows-always-offline/9149) , but in addition to some kind of metrics error, the user usage might be low because of problems with connecting to your bridge for some users, the system should have distributed your bridge, unless you added a custom line in torrc that overwrites it.
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### Author:  [@jabdoa2](https://forum.torproject.org/u/jabdoa2)
#### Post date: [January 6, 2026, 12:16pm UTC](https://forum.torproject.org/t/webtunnel-bridge-unavailable/21059/3 "2026-01-06T12:16:09Z")
Its kind of odd in metrics. Sometimes it shows something like that:
`Bridge xxx advertises:`
`* vanilla IPv4: dysfunctional`
` Error: timed out waiting for bridge descriptor`
` Last tested: 2026-01-06 05:xx:xx.xx +0000 UTC (2hxxmxx ago)`
`* webtunnel: functional`
` Last tested: 2026-01-06 06:xx:xx.xx +0000 UTC (2hxmxx ago)`
Othertimes webtunnel is missing. According to the other thread `vanilla` should go away eventually. It did not appear initially - only `webtunnel` did initially. Now `webtunnel` sometimes disappears but `vanilla` sticks.
For my new bridge I got only `vanilla` so far. Even though in its log it reports:
`Jan xx 21:xx:xx.xx [notice] Registered server transport ‘webtunnel’ at ‘[2001:db8:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx]:443’`
I run a lot of software professionally so running stuff on the internet is not new to me. However, running a tor bridge is really confusing for me. Is it setup correctly? Is it running? How to monitor it?
I guess my options are: a) run unmonitored/unmaintained software on the internet. as we call it at work: “strategy hope” b) remove it from the internet as I am not confident that I can properly master the operations. How do others feel about this?