A stalled Site Audit crawl or a desynced Brand Vault causes Search Atlas to work with outdated data. Use the steps below to identify which issue applies and resolve it.

📍 Navigation Paths

Site Audit: Search Atlas → OTTO SEO → Site Audit → All Audits → View Audit

Brand Vault: Header (apps-grid icon) → More Features → Brand Vault

🧠 Common Reasons a Site Audit Gets Stuck

🔢 1. Crawl Limit Set Too High

If the Pages to Crawl limit is set too high, the crawler may slow down or stall. This is especially common on sites with:

• Heavy pages
• Slow server response
• Many redirects

🔁 2. Redirect-Heavy Pages

If the audit reports a large number of redirect pages in the Issues summary, the crawl may appear stuck while processing them. Redirect chains increase crawl time and can delay completion — counts in the high double-digits or above on a single audit are generally enough to noticeably slow the crawl.

⏱ 3. Temporary Processing Delays

Crawls do not always complete in strict numerical order. It is normal for an audit to pause near the end while processing remaining URLs.

🤖 4. AI Processing Rate Limits on AI-Graded Audits

Previously, AI-graded audits could stall during AI-powered page summary generation if the AI processing layer hit a daily rate limit, with no clear user-facing error. This issue has been resolved on the platform side. If you have an audit that stalled before the fix, re-run it — it should complete normally.

🛰️ 5. OTTO Diagnostics Scan Running Indefinitely

This is distinct from the crawl-limit stall above. If an OTTO Diagnostics scan runs indefinitely and surfaces the error "Could not reach homepage, try again later", this was caused by a platform-side issue that has now been resolved. Retry the OTTO Diagnostics scan — it should now complete successfully.

⚙️ How to Troubleshoot a Stuck Site Audit Crawl

Step 1 — Lower the Crawl Limit

1. Open the affected audit.
2. Go to Audit Settings.
3. Locate Pages to Crawl.
4. Reduce the limit to 200–500 pages.
5. Save and rerun the audit.

Smaller crawls help confirm whether page weight or redirects are causing the delay.

Step 2 — Re-run the Audit

After lowering the crawl limit, restart the audit and monitor progress in the All Audits view. If the audit completes successfully at a lower limit, the issue is configuration-related.

💡 Why Content Genius References Old Website Content

Content Genius generates articles using brand context stored in the Brand Vault. The Brand Vault is populated through RAG (Retrieval-Augmented Generation) ingestion — an automatic process that indexes your site content from the most recent completed Site Audit. If the Brand Vault fails to re-sync after a site update and re-crawl, Content Genius will continue referencing your old website content even when the Site Audit shows a newer crawl date.

📣 Platform note: A previously identified platform-side ingestion bug could cause silent Brand Vault desync independent of any user action — affected crawls were never properly ingested into RAG even when users manually triggered re-syncs. This issue has been resolved. If you experienced stale Content Genius output before the fix, trigger a fresh Brand Vault sync now and verify that generated content reflects your current crawl data.

🔍 Symptoms of a Brand Vault Desync

• Content Genius articles reference pages, products, or copy that no longer exist on your site.
• Updated page titles or descriptions do not appear in generated content.
• The issue persists across multiple Content Genius generations after a site update.

🔄 How to Refresh the Brand Vault After a Site Update

1. Go to Header (apps-grid icon) → More Features → Brand Vault.
2. Confirm your most recent Site Audit shows a Completed status under Site Audit → All Audits.
3. In Brand Vault, select the Re-ingest or refresh option to pull in the latest Site Audit data.
4. Wait for the ingestion process to finish before generating new content.
5. Verify: Generate a test article in Content Genius and confirm it references current site content. If the output still appears outdated, contact support with your Brand Vault ID so the team can confirm your underlying url_sources were properly re-hashed.

Once the sync completes, Content Genius will reference your updated website content.

🚨 When This May Be a System Issue

Contact support if any of the following apply after troubleshooting:

• The Site Audit crawl remains stuck across multiple runs at the same page count.
• Lowering the crawl limit does not resolve the stall.
• Content Genius still references old site content after the Brand Vault has been refreshed and the Site Audit shows Completed.
• Other users on your account are experiencing similar behavior.

Support may already be tracking the issue internally.

❓ Frequently Asked Questions

❓ Why does my audit stop at the same number every time?

This often indicates redirect-heavy pages or slow server responses near the end of the crawl. Reduce the Pages to Crawl limit and rerun to confirm.

❓ Is a stuck audit caused by my site configuration?

Usually yes. Lowering the crawl limit helps isolate the cause. If the audit completes at a lower limit, the issue is configuration-related.

❓ Should I keep rerunning the audit without changing settings?

No. Repeated reruns without adjusting settings will not resolve a stall. Reduce the crawl limit first, then rerun.

❓ Why does Content Genius still use my old site content after I updated my website?

Content Genius reads brand context from the Brand Vault, which syncs from your latest Site Audit via RAG ingestion. If the Brand Vault did not re-ingest after your most recent Site Audit completed, it will still reference old content. Go to Header (apps-grid icon) → More Features → Brand Vault and trigger a refresh to resolve this. If a test article still looks stale afterward, contact support with your Brand Vault ID.

❓ Do I need to contact support?

Only if the crawl remains stuck after reducing the crawl limit and rerunning, or if Content Genius still references old content after a Brand Vault refresh. Most issues resolve through the troubleshooting steps above.

🎯 You now know how to resolve stalled Site Audit crawls and fix Content Genius stale output caused by Brand Vault desync. If issues persist after following the steps above, contact the Search Atlas support team for further assistance.