04 May 2025

QR Code Not Scanning? We'll Try to Help!

Is your QR code not scanning? You've come to the right place! You can try out our free tool to fix it below!

Submit Your Broken QR Code for a Free Repair

Upload your non‑scanning QR code now: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdn3K9KEV72LPhPPzfS8YvBBzBeoYLbi5cB7IjlQHfsn2xtMg/viewform?usp=header

You can also optionally email it to me at: daniel@humanqr.com.

I’ll try to repair your QR code and send you the results. Your code will also join a dataset we’re building to improve QR‑code restoration. Once we’ve collected and fixed enough samples, we’ll release the dataset so others can keep advancing a solution that wouldn't need to be done by hand.

Background Story

Awhile ago someone reached out to me about a QR code on a cat's collar. Apparently his friend woke up with a cat laying on-top of him while he was sleeping.

This isn't normally something to be too concerned about, but his friend doesn't own a cat.

Another one showed up soon after.

Both cats wore bulky tags—unnerving enough to make the man paranoid about why they kept appearing with tags jangling on their collars.

The man tried to figure out a way to scan the QR codes on the tags. However, they had worn down from bouncing around as the cats moved.

No such luck.

They sent the QR codes my way.

The QR code was badly worn down.

So I went ahead and tried to repair the QR code:

The repair process for this one involved isolating the code and increasing the contrast.

It also involved fixing the corner.

To my surprise, I fixed it and got it to scan. The QR code being able to be scanned ruled out a few possibilities, and it was learned the cats belonged to nearby neighbors.

This didn't change much as far as the cats were concerned. They kept dropping by unannounced, blissfully unaware of boundaries.

Many months later, Greg, who I hadn't met at the time, was wondering why a QR code he stumbled across didn't scan. Greg's curiosity led to a conversation that resulted in putting on a QR show. I happened to hear about the event and attended.

The show was a ton of fun and I got into some great conversations about QR codes.

Greg and I got into a conversation at one point. I had asked about what made them put on the event. Greg had explained that he too had come across a broken QR code.

Greg had suggested QR codes have failure modes but not enough is known as to why a QR code doesn't scan when it fails to scan.

You'll know when the QR code scans.

You know when the QR code is not scanning.

You won't know why or how it failed to scan.

There isn't any in-between. It's very all-or-nothing.

I'd shared with Greg my own story of fixing one up and we had discussed a software tool should exist to repair QR codes as being something that people could really benefit from because QR codes are used everywhere.

I'd like to find a way to repair QR codes in a reliable way. However, that begins with collecting a bunch of broken and corrupted QR codes people stumble across and fixing them up by hand. So please help out by submitting your QR code that doesn't scan. Please don't create QR codes that don't scan just to submit them. Thank you!