Troubleshooting
Common symptoms in Emerge.ai, what causes each one, and what to do about it.
Common problems, roughly in the order they come up. Each entry describes the symptom as you'd notice it, what causes it, and what to do.
Most of these are the product working as designed, so the fix is usually a setting to change or a short wait.
Chat has stopped responding
Emerge.ai applies two AI usage limits at once: a daily one for you personally, and a weekly pool shared across everyone on the subscription and all of its Clouds. Because the pool is shared, your chat can stop even when your own daily meter is low.
If your plan includes the Emerge Fast & Free group, chat continues on that model and tells you it has switched. If it doesn't, chat pauses until the limit resets.
What to do: open Settings → AI Usage to see both meters and when each one resets — limits reset on their own, with nothing to clear manually. (Some plans have no cap at all; that page then reads "Your plan has no usage limits configured.") To keep premium models running now, you have two paid options: Buy Tokens on the Extra AI Tokens card ($5 / $10 / $25 / $50 presets, or a custom $1–$500, as shown in the product on 2026-08-19), or change plan under Settings → Plan and Billing.
A model is unavailable, or missing from the picker
Three different things produce this:
- It isn't included in your plan. Models outside your plan are shown as unavailable rather than hidden, with a note saying they're not on the current plan.
- It's temporarily unavailable. Nothing to fix on your side.
- An administrator has hidden it for the whole Cloud. Administrators can hide specific models from Cloud Settings → AI Models, independently of what the plan allows. A model hidden that way doesn't appear at all for anyone in the Cloud — so this shows up as a model missing from the picker altogether, not one marked unavailable.
What to do: choose another model. If you need one your plan doesn't include, that's an upgrade; if a model you expect is missing entirely, ask an administrator.
Auto has disappeared from the picker
Auto is unavailable while Lockdown Mode is on: the option leaves the picker, and a chat that was set to Auto moves to a specific allowed model.
What to do: nothing is broken — pick whichever allowed model suits the chat. See Lockdown Mode for what else changes while it's on.
Web search isn't available in chat
Web search works only when your plan includes it and the model you have selected supports it. Lockdown Mode also disables it: the confirmation reads "web search will be disabled until lockdown mode is turned off."
What to do: check the plan, the selected model, and Lockdown Mode — in that order. Nothing inside the chat itself switches it back on.
A file you just uploaded can't be found in chat
A file has to finish processing before its contents can be searched. Ask about it too early and Emerge.ai returns a message saying it isn't indexed yet, rather than an answer.
What to do: wait for processing to finish, then ask again.
An invited person shows as "Pending"
Anyone you invite appears in the member list straight away, by email address, with the role you gave them and a Pending badge. The badge stays until they accept the invitation. This is true whether they are new to Emerge.ai or already have an account.
What to do: nothing. The badge clears and their name appears once they accept.
A teammate can't be added to a chat
A chat does not need to belong to a project. You can add people, give them roles, and use Share with everyone in any chat.
What to do: open the chat's member settings and add them from the People tab. See Collaborating in a chat for the steps. If the person is not in the Cloud's member list yet, invite them first — see Invite your team.
Members can't be managed
Managing members is what the Cloud Owner and Cloud Administrator roles do. With any other role, the controls for it are not available to you.
What to do: ask a Cloud Owner or Cloud Administrator to make the change.
The Cloud is paused with a notice
A Cloud can be placed in a maintenance state that pauses it for everyone, with a notice and an expected end time.
What to do: wait for the window given in the notice.
A deleted file can't be recovered
Deleting a file is permanent. The product says so when you do it — "This action cannot be undone." — and there is nowhere to retrieve it from afterwards.
What to do: there is no in-product recovery path for a deleted file. If you wanted it out of the way rather than gone, archiving is the reversible action. See Data retention for what is and isn't recoverable.
A new Cloud can't be created
Two different blocks produce this. Only the subscription owner can create a new Cloud, so anyone else is refused regardless of plan. And past the number of Clouds your plan allows, creation is blocked until capacity changes.
What to do: if it's the role, ask the subscription owner. If it's the limit, the owner can upgrade the plan or add an extra Cloud for $5/month under Settings → Plan and Billing (as shown in the product on 2026-08-19); on a managed Enterprise plan, contact support.
