## **🔍 What Is This Error?**

When you try to generate image alt texts using AI — either in bulk or one at a time through OTTO or the Site Audit — you may see a **billing\_not\_active** error. This can happen even if your subscription is active and you have remaining AI quota. The error is caused by a billing date sync issue on the platform side, not by anything you have done wrong.



## **⚙️ How to Fix It**

1. **Refresh your browser.** Press **Ctrl + Shift + R** (Windows) or **Cmd + Shift + R** (Mac) to perform a hard refresh and clear any cached session data.
2. **Sign out and sign back in.** Log out of Search Atlas completely, then log back in. This forces the platform to re-verify your billing status and often resolves the error immediately.
3. **Retry the alt text generation.** Navigate back to the image alt text feature — either through OTTO or the Site Audit — and try generating alt texts again.
4. **Wait a few minutes if the error persists.** In some cases, the billing sync takes a short time to update. Wait 3–5 minutes, then try again.

## **📍 Where to Find Image Alt Text Generation**

You can access AI image alt text generation in two places inside Search Atlas:

- **OTTO:** Open your OTTO dashboard, go to the **Image Optimization** section, and use the bulk or individual alt text generation option.
- **Site Audit:** Navigate to your site audit report, find the **Image** issues section, and trigger alt text generation from there.

## **🚫 Known Causes to Rule Out**

Before contacting support, confirm the following are not contributing to the issue:

- **Billing date mismatch:** If your billing renewal date recently passed, there may be a brief window where the system incorrectly flags your account. Signing out and back in usually resolves this.
- **Image blocked by CDN:** Some images hosted behind a content delivery network (CDN) cannot be accessed by Search Atlas for alt text generation. If a specific image consistently fails, its CDN settings may be blocking the request. This is separate from the billing error.
- **Unexpected errors on individual images:** If only one or two images fail while others succeed, the issue is likely with those specific images rather than your billing status.

## **✅ After the Fix**

Once you have signed back in and the billing status is correctly recognised, your AI image alt text generation should work normally. Your existing AI quota is not affected by this error — any failed generation attempts do not consume your credits.



## **💬 Still Seeing the Error?**

If the steps above do not resolve the issue, our team can investigate your account billing status directly. If you need further assistance, open the chat widget in the bottom-right corner of the platform and type **human teammate** to be connected with a member of our team.