> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.samsearch.co/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.
# Troubleshooting
> Why am I not seeing what I expect? Answers for the most common "this looks broken" moments in SamSearch
Most "this looks broken" moments turn out to be one of the mechanisms on this page working exactly as designed. Find your symptom below — each entry explains the actual cause and what to do about it.
Unfamiliar term? Check the [Glossary](/glossary). Still stuck after reading the relevant section? Use **Live Support** in the left sidebar or email [support@samsearch.co](mailto:support@samsearch.co).
## Recommendations
### "I'm not getting any recommendations"
**Cause:** AI Recommendations needs a minimum signal before it will generate anything. Your active AI Profile must have **at least one** of: a positive keyword, a NAICS code, a PSC code, or a business description of **40+ characters**. Miss all four, and generation is skipped entirely for that run.
The run still reports back as successful even when generation was skipped — nothing in the UI tells you it didn't happen. This is the most common reason for an empty Recommendations page, and it isn't a bug.
Two other things silently reduce what you see:
* A **hidden** source (Company Profile → Sources & Alerts → Hide toggle) is removed from the app entirely, including recommendations, for that profile.
* **Grants**, **SBIR/STTR**, and **Canada** are **opt-in for recommendations** — they show up in Search by default, but won't feed your recommendations until you turn on their **AI recommendations** toggle. (GSA eBuy is also off for recommendations by default and has no toggle on that tab.)
**Fix:** Open **Company Profile → AI Profile Setup** and confirm you have at least one qualifying field. Then check **Sources & Alerts** to confirm the sources you care about are neither hidden nor missing the AI-recommendations toggle.
### "My recommendations stopped changing"
**Cause:** the qualification cache. SamSearch remembers one decision per profile, source, and opportunity the first time it's evaluated. Once an opportunity has a final decision — pass, low fit, reject, or needs review — later runs skip it, so it won't be re-evaluated or resurface just because you refreshed.
A cache entry expires at the opportunity's response deadline **plus 7 days** — not on a fixed timer. An opportunity with **no stated deadline** is therefore excluded **permanently**.
**Fix:** This is expected behavior once a profile has been running a while — new recommendations come from newly posted opportunities, not re-runs of old ones. If you've made a meaningful profile change (new certification, new NAICS code) and want previously-seen opportunities reconsidered, mention that when you contact support.
### "I gave feedback and nothing changed"
**Cause:** thumbs feedback doesn't update scores immediately. It's folded into a **nightly digest** that produces a capped list of "learned insights" — patterns used in future qualification and scoring runs. Insights can only **move a score up or down**; they never cause a reject on their own. Because the list is capped, once it's full a new pattern can only get in by displacing an older one — so recent feedback can appear to do nothing.
**Fix:** Give it a day — the digest runs overnight. If a profile is new, don't expect immediate movement; there isn't enough feedback yet for the digest to learn from.
### "My keyword isn't matching"
**Cause:** positive and negative keywords match on a **literal substring**, not a concept. "HVAC mechanical contracting" will **not** match an opportunity titled "HVAC PREVENTIVE MAINTENANCE" — the phrases don't literally overlap, even though they describe the same trade.
**Fix:** Use shorter, more literal fragments (`HVAC` instead of `HVAC mechanical contracting`) so a substring match actually fires across differently-worded titles.
## Search & Saved Searches
### "My saved-search alert didn't include AI qualification"
**Cause:** AI Qualification only runs on the **scheduled email alert** — never on a manual **Run Search** click, which is explicitly labeled "Skips AI qualification" in-app. If you're comparing a manual run to what showed up by email, they didn't use the same evaluation.
**Fix:** To see AI-qualified results, check the **Recommendations** page (where qualified results land) or wait for the next scheduled alert run.
### "I'm not getting alert emails"
**Cause:** a few gates stack here:
* Alert frequency is **Daily, Weekly, or Monthly only** — there's no instant or real-time option.
* On a saved search with AI Qualification turned on, only opportunities scoring **50% or higher** are emailed. Anything below that is still visible in-app but never goes out by email.
* On a **shared** saved search, each teammate subscribes independently with their own frequency — being able to see a shared search doesn't mean you're subscribed to its alerts.
**Fix:** Confirm the saved search's alert bell is set to a frequency (not off), check your own subscription if it's a shared search, and remember that low-scoring matches are visible on-screen even when they don't hit your inbox.
## Sources & Coverage
### "I only see Federal opportunities"
**Cause:** SLED, DIBBS, Canada, Recompete, Grants, Forecasts, Subcontracting, SBIR/STTR, GSA eBuy, Multi-Source search, Awards, Partnerships, and SB Specialists all require **SLED access**, which comes with the Pro and Enterprise plans. Without it, those are unavailable, the Market Watch item is removed from the sidebar, and Search only returns Federal.
**Fix:** This is a plan boundary, not a bug. See [SLED access](/features/upgrade#sled-access), check your plan in [Settings](/features/settings#current-plan), or ask your account owner.
### "My GSA eBuy opportunities haven't appeared"
**Cause:** GSA eBuy activation is a two-step process. First, you add SamSearch's dedicated eBuy address as a Point of Contact on your GSA eBuy account. That alone doesn't turn opportunities on — **final activation is performed manually by SamSearch staff** after your POC is confirmed. The in-app empty state says opportunities "usually appear within 24 hours" of that. Also remember eBuy only surfaces the specific contract vehicles SamSearch is registered as POC on — a second vehicle needs its own separate POC addition.
**Fix:** Confirm the POC step is complete in eBuy, then allow up to \~24 hours for activation. Still nothing after that? Contact support. [Setup guide →](/features/gsa-ebuy-integration)
### "Why is this scored low / why was this screened out?"
**Cause:** two different banners can appear on a contract page when there's no live recommendation for it:
| Banner | Meaning |
| - | - |
| **Screened out** | AI qualification rejected it as not a fit for your profile. Headline: *"We reviewed this and didn't recommend it."* |
| **Scored low** | It's related to your work, but qualification found something blocking it (marked low fit), so it scored low. Headline: *"We showed this to you, but it scored low."* SamSearch shows these deliberately rather than hiding them — if the issue is something you can work around (teaming, a different region), it may still be worth pursuing. |
**Fix:** Open the banner's dialog for the specific reasons found. Both reflect your profile **at the time of the run** — if you've since updated your profile, refresh recommendations to get a new evaluation.
### "A listing shows contradictory Set-Aside and Competition values"
**Cause:** Set-Aside and Competition are two separate fields. On rare listings — usually **Forecast** (pre-solicitation) opportunities sourced from agencies' own preliminary planning data — the Competition field can display an inconsistent placeholder value. This is a data-quality issue in the underlying source data, not a SamSearch bug.
**Fix:** Treat pre-solicitation Forecast data as provisional. The real Set-Aside determination is set once the opportunity is formally solicited.
### "An award I know about isn't showing in Awards"
**Cause:** Awards and Market Watch read live, uncached data directly from **USAspending.gov** — SamSearch doesn't store or independently refresh award data, so its freshness (and any gaps or lag) belongs to USAspending, not SamSearch.
**Fix:** If USAspending itself has the award, SamSearch will reflect it as soon as USAspending's own data catches up. There's nothing to fix on the SamSearch side.
## Proposals
### "My proposal won't generate"
**Cause:** before generation starts, SamSearch checks whether it has enough source material. Solicitation documents with almost no readable text are rejected automatically. The rest are read more closely and land in one of three verdicts: **Sufficient**, **Partial** (checklist built, but the narrative outline is withheld rather than invented), or **Insufficient** (generation blocked, e.g. a scanned page with no readable text).
**Fix:** Attach the actual solicitation document(s) to the opportunity or Journey — not just a title or summary. If a document shows as not fully indexed yet, wait for indexing to finish or re-upload it.
## Team & Account
### "I can't invite a teammate"
**Cause:** your organization has a seat limit — 1 by default, plus any seats add-on. At the limit, invites are blocked with an error like:
> "No available seats (using X/Y)"
**Fix:** Free up a seat by deactivating an inactive member, or add seats to your plan from [Upgrade](/features/upgrade).
If a teammate's invite email never arrives (and it's not in spam), the reliable fix is to have them sign up directly at SamSearch using the exact email address you invited — that resolves it without waiting on the email.
### "I can't create another AI Profile"
**Cause:** organizations have a profile limit — 1 by default, plus any AI Profile add-on. Your first, default profile is always allowed regardless of the limit; it's specifically a **second or later** profile that's blocked, with an error like:
> "AI Profile limit reached (X/Y). Upgrade your plan to add more profiles."
This trips people up because adding more detail to your **existing** profile — documents, description, keywords, certifications — is unrestricted and free. It's only a wholly **separate** profile (for a different business entity, division, or subsidiary) that's gated.
**Fix:** If you meant to add more detail, do that on your existing profile instead — see [Company Profile](/features/business-profile). If you genuinely need a second profile, that's a paid add-on; contact SamSearch to add capacity.
## Integrations
### "I can't connect a second CRM"
**Cause:** SamSearch supports **one CRM, one cloud-storage workspace (Google or Microsoft), and one messaging app (Slack or Microsoft Teams) connected at a time**. While one is connected, the others in that category are blocked, and the card tells you to disconnect the current one first.
**Fix:** To switch, disconnect the current integration from [Integrations](/features/integrations), then connect the new one. Running two CRMs at once isn't currently supported.
### "Microsoft Teams doesn't recognize my account" / notifications aren't firing
**Cause:** Teams requires your organization's Microsoft 365 **Global Administrator** to approve a one-time admin-consent prompt before SamSearch can match Teams users to SamSearch accounts. Until someone with that role approves it, SamSearch won't recognize any user from your tenant, and channel notifications won't fire.
**Fix:** Have your Global Administrator complete the admin-consent step from the Teams setup flow. After clicking **Accept**, the confirmation page can look like a browser certificate/TLS warning — that's expected and harmless as long as Accept was clicked. [Teams setup guide →](/features/microsoft-teams-integration)
## Login & Account Access
### "It says my trial has ended, or I can't log in"
**Cause:** access to SamSearch requires an active session and either a paid plan or an ongoing trial — outside of that, every route shows the Upgrade page, including a "trial has ended" message. A common, unrelated cause of this exact same message: being signed in with a **different email address** than the one your organization's subscription actually runs on. Since each login is tied to a specific account, signing in with the wrong email can look identical to a lapsed trial or subscription.
**Fix:** First, log out and confirm you're signing back in with the exact email your account was created under. If you're certain you're on the right account and still see this message, contact support with your account email — don't assume it reflects your actual billing status without checking.
## A Few Things That Look Like Bugs but Aren't
### "My teammate can't see the opportunities I saved"
**Cause:** Saved Opportunities are per-login and don't sync between teammates on separate accounts — by design. **Journey Hub is the shared layer**: any opportunity either of you starts a Journey for is visible to the whole team.
**Fix:** If you want a teammate to see something, start a Journey for it rather than only saving it.
### "My Journey isn't tracking amendments or updates"
**Cause:** a Journey started directly from a live opportunity (the **Start Journey** button) stays linked to that opportunity's source data, including future amendments. A Journey created manually from inside Journey Hub, without an originating opportunity, does not carry that link.
**Fix:** Always use **Start Journey** from the opportunity page itself when you want ongoing update tracking. If you already created one manually, keep the originally-linked entry for update tracking and use the manual one for internal notes only.
***
Not covered here? Use **Live Support** in the left sidebar or email [support@samsearch.co](mailto:support@samsearch.co). See also the [FAQ](/features/faq) for account, billing, and general how-to questions.