Troubleshooting

Sign-in, upload, review, RealityCheck, billing, and add-in issues — what each message means and what to actually do about it.

Most of what looks like a bug is one of a small set of known states. Work through the section that matches what you are seeing before assuming something is broken.

Signing in

• “Login failed” or “SSO authentication failed” — retry once. If your organization uses single sign-on, confirm you are using the same identity provider account your invitation was sent to; a personal account with the same email is a different identity to Auth0.
• “This verification link has expired” or “This reset link has expired” — request a new one rather than retrying the old link. Links are single-use and time-boxed by design.
• “Organization membership is still being confirmed” — an invitation acceptance is still processing. Wait a moment before retrying.

Uploading

• “Unsupported file type” — BriefCatch accepts .doc, .docx, and .pdf in the main upload flow. Convert the file first if it is in another format.
• File will not upload at all — confirm the file is not empty and that you actually have access to the source. If it comes from a connected drive, reconnect the drive and choose the file again; see Integrations.
• “Upload failed” from a drive source — the provider connection may have lapsed. Reconnecting usually resolves it.

Review is stuck or missing

• “This review is queued” or progress not moving — leave the review open. A queue position can appear during busy periods, and that is a real queue, not a stall. Do not upload the same document again to try to jump the line — a second upload starts a second, independent run.
• “Analysis service is unavailable. Please try again later.” — the engine could not be reached. The document itself is safe; retry the review rather than re-uploading.
• Progress stops advancing entirely — if the product offers Try again, use it once before reporting it.
• A recent document will not open — check its expiry label in My Documents. An expired stored document has had its file deleted; its review metadata can still be listed, but there is nothing left to open. Re-upload the source file. See My Documents.

Suggestions or reports look stale

Refresh after changing the document — real-time updates are unavailable in Office Online and Outlook, so Refresh is the manual equivalent there. If you have edited a passage substantially, BriefCatch may no longer be able to anchor a suggestion to it; re-analyze to get findings that match the current text. See Review a document.

RealityCheck will not start

• Confirm RealityCheck is available for the active account and license — it is Reality Check specifically that can be excluded from a commercial deal even when Document Review is included.
• Confirm the credit balance can cover it; RealityCheck is the one feature that spends credits. See Usage and credits.
• Only start a new run intentionally. Refreshing or reopening a saved document should not silently begin another run and should not silently charge credits again.

Billing and payment

• “Payment processor unavailable. Please try again later.” — the payment provider could not be reached. This is on the provider’s side; retry rather than re-entering payment details repeatedly.
• “Card expired” or “Payment Failed” — update the payment method at the provider’s hosted page, linked from Billing, then retry.
• A confirmed purchase looks stuck — do not retry the payment. Refresh the billing screen first; confirmation is processed asynchronously and can take a short time to appear.
• “Top up unavailable” — credit purchases can be temporarily disabled during a billing-provider issue, or restricted to the plan’s owner. See Roles and permissions.

Word add-in

• Real-time updates and inline suggestions are unavailable in Office Online and Outlook by design — use Refresh in those hosts instead of waiting for automatic updates.
• If the add-in cannot reach your account, confirm you installed it from AppSource under the same account you use on the web, not a different Microsoft or Google identity.
• Billing links inside the add-in open the web portal and remain subject to your role — an admin following a billing link still lands on the owner-only wall. See Billing.

Contacting support

Include the screen, the approximate time, the document type, and the exact visible error message. Do not attach a client document unless your organization’s policy permits it, and never send passwords, access tokens, or full payment-card details — to BriefCatch support or to anyone else who asks for them under that pretense.