Safari giving "kCFErrorDomainCFNetwork error 303" when visiting a site

OK, this solution is the strangest thing. I found the solution on a Russian site, but now that the search terms for the solution are known you can find at some other sites.

The problem is a result of Safari holding too much local data for the site in question and failing to deal with that correctly. I use archive.org a lot so I had lots of LocalStorage and Cookie data for that site. The fact that this data is only in Safari, and none of my other browsers explains why they could browse the site just fine.

So, the solution:

  • Go into Safari > Preferences > Privacy
  • Search for "archive.org"
  • Click Remove
  • The problem goes away

Here's a video showing the problem before and after: https://imgur.com/gallery/d1P1FCi

fix kCFErrorDomainCFNetwork error 303 in Safari on macOS

I've reported this to Apple with full logs as radar #14814758.