What does "Sitemap could not be read" mean in Google Search Console?

Q: What does "Sitemap could not be read" mean in Google Search Console?

Google could not download your sitemap, so it has read none of its URLs. Usual causes: a robots.txt block, a 404, server errors or a manual action.

It means Google tried to download your sitemap and could not, so it has not read any of the URLs in it. It is a fetch problem, not a formatting one, and it usually appears with the status Couldn't fetch. Google's help names the common causes: robots.txt blocks the file, the address returns a 404, the server errors or is unavailable, or the site has an unresolved manual action. Fix the cause and resubmit.

Check the sitemap the way Google does

Work through these in order; most cases end at step 2 or 3.

Open the exact submitted URL in a private browser window. It should load as XML or plain text, with no login page, cookie wall or redirect to the home page.
Check the status code. Run curl -I https://www.example.com/sitemap.xml and look for 200. A 404 means the address is wrong or the file moved; a 5xx points at the server.
Read robots.txt. A Disallow rule that covers the sitemap's path stops Google from fetching it, because Google respects robots.txt for sitemaps too.
Run a live URL inspection on the sitemap address in Search Console. Google's Sitemaps report help suggests confirming that Page fetch shows Successful before you submit.
Compare protocol and host. A sitemap submitted as http://example.com/sitemap.xml to an https://www.example.com/ property is a different address from the one that works.

Common causes and fixes

Cause	Fix
`robots.txt` disallows the sitemap's path	Remove or narrow the rule, then resubmit
The URL returns 404	Submit the address the file really lives at; check `www`, `https` and trailing slashes
Server errors or timeouts	Check server logs for Googlebot's requests to the sitemap and for errors while the file is generated
Firewall or bot protection blocks Googlebot	Allow Google's crawlers through for the sitemap and the pages it lists
An unresolved manual action	Resolve it in the Manual actions report first; Google lists this as a reason it may not fetch the file

Google also lists low crawl demand for a site as a reason a sitemap may not be fetched. If every check above passes, keep the file available and resubmit later.

Errors that look similar but are not this one

If the status is Has errors rather than Couldn't fetch, Google did read the file and found problems inside it. Typical examples from the same help page: invalid XML (often a duplicated <loc> tag), URLs on a different host or a higher folder than the sitemap, a file over the 50 MB uncompressed limit, or a compressed file Google could not unpack. Those are fixed in the file itself, not on the server.

What happens after you fix it?

Resubmit the sitemap in the Sitemaps report. Google says it retries a failed sitemap a few more times on its own, but eventually stops, so resubmitting after a fix is the reliable way to get it read. A status of Success means the URLs are queued for crawling. For everything else about sitemaps, see How do I submit a sitemap? and Google Search Console sitemap errors.

How AutoPSEO helps

AutoPSEO's Sitemaps page shows every sitemap Search Console holds for a property, with its errors, warnings, pending state and the date Google last downloaded it, so a sitemap Google has stopped reading stands out. When you bulk-inspect from a sitemap URL, AutoPSEO downloads the file itself and reports any error it hits while reading it.