🔍 Overview

After moving your site to Cloudflare and connecting your Cloudflare token in OTTO, you may see errors such as "OTTO cannot be found" or "invalid name server." This usually happens because DNS changes take time to propagate, or because OTTO's scan runs before Cloudflare fully recognises your domain. This article walks you through the steps to resolve these issues and get OTTO detecting your site correctly.

⚠️ Why This Happens

• DNS propagation delay: After changing nameservers, it can take up to 48 hours for changes to fully propagate across the internet. OTTO may scan your site before this process completes.
• Cloudflare Worker not yet active: If the OTTO Worker deployment is triggered before Cloudflare finishes processing your domain, the pixel or UUID will not be detected.
• Cloudflare proxy status: If the DNS record for your domain is set to DNS-only (grey cloud) instead of Proxied (orange cloud), Cloudflare cannot serve the OTTO Worker.
• Token permission mismatch: The Cloudflare API token connected to OTTO may not have the correct permissions to deploy or read Workers on your zone.

✅ Step-by-Step Fix

1. Confirm nameserver propagation is complete. Visit a free DNS checker tool (such as whatsmydns.net) and verify that your domain's nameservers point to Cloudflare globally. Do not proceed until propagation shows as complete in most regions.
2. Check your Cloudflare domain status. Log in to your Cloudflare dashboard. Under your domain overview, the status should read Active. If it still shows Pending, wait and check again in a few hours.
3. Verify your DNS record proxy status. In Cloudflare, go to DNS → Records and confirm that your root domain (@) and www records have the orange cloud (Proxied) enabled. DNS-only records will prevent OTTO Workers from running.
4. Check your Cloudflare API token permissions. In Cloudflare, go to My Profile → API Tokens and confirm the token connected to OTTO has at minimum: Zone → DNS (Edit), Zone → Zone (Read), Account → Workers Scripts (Edit), Zone → Workers Routes (Edit), and Account → Workers KV Storage (Edit) permissions for the correct zone. Edit the token if any permissions are missing.
5. Reconnect the Cloudflare token in OTTO. In Search Atlas, navigate to OTTO SEO in the left sidebar. Open your OTTO session, go to the Cloudflare connection settings, disconnect the existing token, and reconnect it using the updated or verified token from Cloudflare.
6. Re-trigger the OTTO installation scan. After reconnecting the token, initiate a fresh scan or re-deploy the OTTO Worker from within your OTTO SEO session. Allow a few minutes for the Worker to deploy and for OTTO to verify detection.
7. Clear Cloudflare cache. In your Cloudflare dashboard, go to Caching → Configuration and click Purge Everything. This ensures Cloudflare serves the latest version of your site with the OTTO Worker active.
8. Run the detection check again. Return to your OTTO session in OTTO SEO and confirm the installation status now shows as detected. If the status is still not detected, wait 30 minutes and retry the scan once more.

💡 Tips to Prevent This Issue

• Always wait for full DNS propagation before connecting your Cloudflare token to OTTO or triggering any Worker deployment.
• When creating your Cloudflare API token, use the Edit Cloudflare Workers template as a starting point to ensure all required permissions are included.
• Keep your Cloudflare domain status Active and proxy status set to Proxied at all times while using OTTO via Cloudflare.
• Avoid switching nameservers or making major DNS changes while an OTTO deployment is already in progress.

🆘 Still Seeing the Error?

If you have followed all the steps above and OTTO still cannot detect your Cloudflare site, our team can investigate the specific Worker deployment and zone configuration on your account. 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.