What a 502 Bad Gateway means
A server acting as a gateway or proxy received an invalid response from the upstream server it tried to reach. It's a server-side failure between the edge and the origin — and being a 5xx, it's usually temporary. In short, 502 status code is a gateway or proxy got an invalid response from the upstream server.
Why scrapers see 502
When scraping you see 502 from flaky proxies, an overloaded origin, or a CDN that can't reach the backend. It can also appear transiently when an anti-bot edge mishandles or drops a suspicious request. Unlike a 403, a 502 is generally worth retrying.
How to fix a 502 error
Retry with exponential backoff and jitter — most 502s clear on their own. If they persist, the gateway between you and the origin is the problem: swap to a more reliable proxy pool, lower concurrency so you're not overwhelming a fragile origin, and check whether your proxy provider (not the target) is returning the 502. Persistent 502s only on protected URLs can mean an edge dropping you — a real-browser unblock flow via Web Unblocker is more stable.