Onion site unavailable — circuit or address
Created
Onion site unavailable means this circuit did not reach this address. It does not mean the address is fake. Give the same address a new circuit once. If it still fails, the address is the part that has to change, and another circuit will not bring it back.
Tor Browser no longer uses one sentence for every failure. Its onion services page names the error. The titles below are those names. People still search the older wording, and the split underneath it is the same: a bad path, a busy service, or an address that is not there.
A new circuit, first
A new circuit replaces the path to this one address. It does not clear the rest of the browser.
The command is New Tor Circuit for this Site. It sits in the hamburger menu, the one marked ≡, and again in the circuit display inside the site information panel on the address bar. Tor describes it for the case where the relay you drew cannot reach the site, or reaches it and loads it badly. The current tab reloads over a new circuit. Other tabs for that same address pick up the new circuit once they reload. Cookies and history stay. That is the point. You are testing the path, not starting over.
"New Identity" is the other item in that menu, and it is the wrong one here. It closes your tabs, drops cookies and history, and builds new circuits for everything. Use it when you want later browsing unlinked from what you just did. It is a blunt way to ask the same address a second question.
If the page loads after the new circuit, the address was fine and the first path was not. Stop there. You do not need another string.
A slow failure looks like a dead site
Some errors mean "not yet", and leaving the tab early turns them into a hunt for a new address.
Tor's table is specific. "Unable to Connect to Onionsite" (0xF3) means the onionsite is busy or the Tor network is overloaded. A traffic flood is one way a service gets that busy. The action Tor gives is to come back later, not to throw the address away. "Onionsite Circuit Creation Timed Out" (0xF7) means the circuit was not built, possibly because the connection is poor. That one is exactly what a new circuit is for, after you have let the first attempt finish.
The tab that just sits there is the same family of problem. A circuit to an onion address is slower than a normal page, and a loaded relay is slower still. If you abandon it at the first pause, every overload feels like a dead site, and the next string someone offers you starts to look like help. Let the error actually appear. Then decide.
The second failure is the address
If the same string fails after a new circuit, and after a real wait, the string is what is wrong.
"Onionsite Not Found" (0xF0) and "Onionsite Has Disconnected" (0xF2) are Tor's way of saying the onionsite is offline. Another circuit to that exact string still ends at an offline service. The operator may have moved, the service may be down for the day, or the address may have been retired. None of those is repaired by drawing a third path.
"Invalid Onionsite Address" (0xF6) is simpler, and it is the one people argue with. Tor Browser could not treat what you typed as an onion address. Current onion addresses are 56 characters, then .onion. One wrong character is enough. A 16-character address is the old v2 form, which the Tor network no longer supports. Shorter is not a style. It is a dead format. The checks are written up under Problem reaching an onion site.
The next address should be one you already had, from a list you kept before this tab failed. A message that arrives now, with the old address declared dead and a fresh string ready, is how a lookalike gets used. For the four strings ZonStatistic currently lists, that list is the Torzon tor link. This page does not repeat them.
Another string is another site
A page that loads on a different string is not the old site moved.
It can wear the same name and the same colors. The address is still a different address. Read the whole string before you type a login into it. If you already have a fingerprint for the real key, this is the moment to use it, and how to use PGP is the check: import only a key whose fingerprint you can match to a copy that did not arrive with the key. A site that loads and immediately offers you a key file is asking you to skip that.
When Tor itself is what failed
If no onion address loads, and ordinary sites in Tor Browser do not load either, you are not debugging one service.
The quick split is another onion you already know works. Tor's own troubleshooting says to load a second onionsite, such as Tor Project's, before you blame the address in front of you. If that second site loads, your circuits are fine and this address is the failure. If it does not load either, you are looking at the browser's connection to Tor, not at one service.
A clock that is hours off will keep Tor from building circuits at all. That shows up before any single onionsite is involved, and fixing the clock is the whole repair. A network that blocks Tor is a different problem again. Bridges and the rest of that setup live in the Tor Browser manual, and they are a longer job than a new circuit. Do not start them because one address returned Onionsite Not Found. Start them when the browser cannot reach the Tor network.
Questions people actually hit
Will a new circuit revive a dead onion address?
No. A new circuit only replaces the path. If Tor Browser reports Onionsite Not Found or Onionsite Has Disconnected, Tor's own table says the onionsite is offline. Another path to the same address still ends at an offline service.
Should I wait, or switch addresses?
Wait, and request one new circuit, when the error is Unable to Connect to Onionsite or the circuit timed out. Switch addresses after that same string has failed twice. The second failure is the address.
A different address loaded a similar site. Is that the same place?
No. A different string is a different address, even when the page looks familiar. Read the whole string before you type anything into it, and check the fingerprint with the key you already trust.