Search Atlas Help Center

🛠️ Search Atlas — General Platform Issues

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Camilo Aponte

Camilo Aponte

Last updated on Sep 30, 2026

Use this guide to diagnose and fix the most common Search Atlas platform errors — dashboard loading failures, stalled OTTO crawls, health score updates, data sync delays, and schema deployment issues.

⚠️ Common Issues & Fixes

🔴 Error: "Something went wrong" when loading projects or OTTO

What's happening

The dashboard cannot load your project data.

How to fix it

  1. Hard-refresh your browser: Ctrl + Shift + R (Windows) / Cmd + Shift + R (Mac)
  2. Log out and log back in.
  3. Try a different browser — Chrome is recommended.
  4. Clear cache and cookies for dashboard.searchatlas.com.
  5. If you see an error code, copy it and share it with support.

After clearing cache and logging back in, the dashboard should load your projects normally.

🕷️ Error: OTTO crawl stuck on "In Progress"

What's happening

Your site crawl has stalled or is taking longer than expected.

How to fix it

  1. Wait if your site is large — sites with 10,000+ pages or heavy JavaScript can take several hours. If the crawl exceeds 6 hours without completing, proceed to the restart step.

  2. Confirm your site is publicly accessible — no login walls or IP restrictions.

  3. Check your robots.txt to ensure crawlers are not blocked.

  4. Restart the crawl:

    Left Sidebar → OTTO SEO → Site Audit → Overview (Website Overview) → Recrawl Site

  5. If you are using Cloudflare or a WAF, whitelist crawler IPs — contact Search Atlas support to obtain the current list of crawler IP ranges to add to your firewall rules.

    Note: A character encoding corruption bug affecting Cloudflare-deployed OTTO scripts has been resolved and the updated script deployed to production. If you previously disengaged OTTO due to special character corruption or display issues, you can now safely reconnect your Cloudflare integration by navigating to your OTTO project's Cloudflare settings and re-enabling the worker. Contact support if you need assistance re-engaging.

Once the recrawl completes, the crawl status will update from "In Progress" to a finished state.

📊 Error: OTTO health score not updating

What's happening

Your fixes have not been revalidated yet.

How to fix it

  1. Wait at least 30 minutes.

  2. Trigger a manual re-crawl:

    Left Sidebar → OTTO SEO → Site Audit → Overview (Website Overview) → Recrawl Site

  3. Confirm your fixes are live on your actual site — not just in OTTO's optimization dashboard.

  4. Refresh the dashboard.

  5. Use "Validate Fix" on specific tasks to trigger targeted revalidation.

After the re-crawl finishes, your OTTO health score will reflect the validated fixes.

➕ Error: Can't create a new project

What's happening

The domain format is incorrect or the domain already exists in your account.

How to fix it

  1. Enter the domain without the protocol:
    ✅ yourdomain.com
    ❌ https://yourdomain.com
  2. Check whether the domain already exists in your projects.
  3. Click Create only once to avoid duplicate submissions.
  4. Verify your plan limits: Top-right Avatar → Billing → Plans & Top-ups (Billing)
  5. Try incognito mode if the issue persists.

Once the domain format is correct and your plan has available slots, the project will be created successfully.

⏳ Error: OTTO tasks stuck as "Pending"

What's happening

Approved tasks have not executed yet.

How to fix it

  1. Wait up to 15 minutes for the task queue to process.
  2. Check Google Search Console (GSC) permissions — you must be an Owner or Full User.
  3. If tasks remain pending for more than 24 hours, cancel and re-approve them.
  4. Check for noindex tags that may be blocking execution.
  5. Confirm your CMS integration is active.

Resolving permission or integration issues typically unblocks pending tasks within minutes.

🧩 Error: Schema generation or deployment fails

What's happening

Schema markup is not being generated or deployed successfully to your site.

How to fix it

  1. Click the purple Generate button before attempting to deploy.
  2. Clear your browser cache and try again.
  3. If the AI Agent appears stuck while generating schema in batches, refresh the session and re-prompt. If the issue persists, contact support and include your session link.
  4. If the error persists, it is a system-level issue — contact support with your project URL and an error screenshot, as engineering escalation may be required.

After generating schema successfully, the Deploy button becomes active and your schema publishes to your site.

🧱 Error: OTTO deployed fix is adding unwanted content to my site

What's happening

A deployed OTTO fix (for example, Heading Length) is injecting content you did not intend on your front-end.

How to fix it

  1. Go to your OTTO project.
  2. Locate the deployed fix under Optimizations or Deployments.
  3. Click Undeploy on the specific fix (for example, Heading Length).

Undeploying removes the change from your front-end immediately.

🚫 Error: Quota Exhausted when adding a new OTTO site

What's happening

You have reached the OTTO site slot limit on your current plan. OTTO site slots are tracked separately from Site Auditor Projects — having available Site Auditor Projects does not mean you have available OTTO site slots.

How to fix it

  1. Check your plan limits in Top-right Avatar → Billing → Plans & Top-ups (Billing).
  2. Confirm whether you have available OTTO site slots (distinct from Site Auditor Projects).
  3. If the dashboard count appears inconsistent with your plan, contact support.

Once you free up or upgrade your OTTO site slots, you can add the new site.

🧠 Error: Atlas Brain / AI Agent shows "I'm temporarily unable to process your request" or persistent Keyword Gap Analysis errors

What's happening

The Atlas Brain / AI Agent service is returning an error or failing to process requests. Platform-wide Atlas Brain errors occur occasionally, are monitored by the engineering team, and are typically resolved within 48 hours.

How to fix it

  1. Wait a few minutes and retry.
  2. Hard-refresh the browser.
  3. Check the Search Atlas status page.
  4. If the error is platform-wide, engineering is typically already aware. Contact support with your session link to confirm whether a known issue is active and get an estimated resolution time — this is more effective than running self-troubleshooting steps that will not resolve a platform-wide outage.

If it is a platform-wide issue, the Search Atlas engineering team will resolve it — typically within 48 hours.

🏠 Error: Active Projects panel shows zero values or stale data

What's happening

The Active Projects panel on the dashboard homepage may display zero values until manually refreshed, while the Portfolio Summary updates automatically.

How to fix it

  1. Manually trigger a page refresh to repopulate the Active Projects values.
  2. If a standard refresh does not update the values, hard-refresh your browser: Ctrl + Shift + R (Windows) / Cmd + Shift + R (Mac)
  3. A fix for this behavior has been deployed. If the issue persists after refreshing, contact support.

After refreshing, the Active Projects panel will display your current project data.

🔄 Error: Data looks outdated

What's happening

Data refresh cycles have not completed yet.

How to fix it

  1. Wait for the next scheduled refresh cycle — typically 24–48 hours.
  2. Hard-refresh your browser: Ctrl + Shift + R (Windows) / Cmd + Shift + R (Mac)
  3. Verify the date range filter is set correctly.
  4. If data still appears outdated after a full refresh cycle, contact support with your project URL.

Once the refresh cycle completes, your data will reflect the latest available information.

🎯 This guide covers the most common Search Atlas platform issues. If none of these steps resolve your problem, contact Search Atlas support with your project URL, error screenshot, and session link — the team can escalate to engineering when needed.