Common Issues

Running into something unexpected? This page covers the issues writers hit most often, organized by category with clear symptoms, causes, and step-by-step solutions. If you don't find your answer here, check the FAQ or learn how to get help.

AI Generation Issues

“Not enough tokens”

Symptom: You click Write or Continue and see an error telling you your token balance is too low to start generation.

Cause: Every AI generation reserves tokens from your balance before it begins. If your remaining balance is lower than the estimated reservation for the selected model, the request is blocked.

Solution:

1. Open Settings and check your current token balance under the usage section.
2. If your balance is near zero, switch to a cheaper model. Budget models like GPT-5.4 Nano or DeepSeek V4 Flash (1 credit each) use significantly fewer tokens per generation.
3. If you're on a paid plan, your tokens reset every 30 days from your billing date. Check the “Days until reset” indicator in Settings.
4. If you need more tokens now, upgrade your plan for a larger monthly allocation.

“Rate limit exceeded”

Symptom: You see a rate limit error after making several requests in quick succession.

Cause: Genesis Writer enforces per-minute rate limits on each endpoint to ensure fair usage. If you make too many requests in quick succession, you'll see this error.

Solution: Wait 30–60 seconds and try again. Rate limits reset on a rolling one-minute window, so you don't need to wait long. If you're frequently hitting the limit, try generating longer passages in fewer requests rather than many short ones.

“Model not available”

Symptom: You select a model from the toolbar and get an error saying the model is unavailable or restricted to subscribers.

Cause: The Free plan only has access to 6 models. The remaining 14 models require any paid subscription.

Solution:

• If you're on the Free plan — switch to one of the six available models: GPT-5.4 Nano, GPT-5 Mini, Claude 4.5 Haiku, Gemini 2.5 Flash Lite, Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite, or DeepSeek V4 Flash. All are fast, capable budget models.
• If you want more model choices — upgrade to any paid plan. All paid tiers (Basic, Writer, Professional) unlock all 20 models.

Generation Seems Slow or Stops

Symptom: After clicking Write or Continue, the text streams in very slowly, pauses for long stretches, or appears to stop entirely before finishing.

Cause: AI generation uses real-time streaming to deliver text as it's generated. The connection sends periodic heartbeat pings to keep itself alive. Large or complex generations — especially with premium models — can take 30–60 seconds or more to complete. What looks like a stall may just be the model thinking through a longer passage.

Solution:

1. Wait it out. Give the generation at least 30 seconds before assuming it's stalled. Premium models (Claude Opus, GPT-5.2) think harder and produce higher-quality output, but they take longer.
2. Try a faster model. Budget models like GPT-5.4 Nano and Gemini 3 Flash stream almost instantly. If speed matters more than peak quality for a rough draft, use a 1–2 credit model.
3. Click Stop. If generation truly seems stuck, use the Stop button on the generation indicator in the header. You're charged only for the text generated up to that point.
4. Check your internet connection. A dropped connection breaks the live text stream. If your Wi-Fi is unstable, the generation may fail silently. Refresh the page and try again.

Generated Text Doesn't Match My Style

Symptom: The AI produces prose that feels generic, doesn't match your novel's tone, or sounds like a different author entirely.

Cause: Without a writing style applied or enough story context, the AI defaults to a neutral, general-purpose tone. It doesn't know how you write unless you tell it.

Solution:

1. Apply a writing style. Open the Style Selector in the toolbar and choose a style that matches your genre. There are 30+ presets covering everything from literary fiction to fast-paced thrillers. See Using Preset Styles.
2. Add character and project context. Fill in your character profiles, locations, and worldbuilding entries. The more the AI knows about your world, the more it writes like it belongs there. See Context Building & Story Bible.
3. Try a different model. Each model has a distinct personality. Claude models tend toward literary prose, GPT models are versatile and instruction-following, Gemini models handle long contexts well, and Grok favors punchy, direct writing. Experiment to find your match.
4. Create a custom style. If presets aren't close enough, build your own writing style with specific instructions about vocabulary, sentence length, and tone.

Editor Issues

Text Isn't Saving

Symptom: The save indicator in the toolbar shows “Unsaved” and doesn't change to “Saved” after typing.

Cause: Genesis Writer auto-saves with a debounce delay, so there's a brief window after each keystroke before the save fires. If the indicator stays on “Unsaved” for more than a few seconds, the save request likely failed — usually due to a lost internet connection.

Solution:

1. Force save with Ctrl+S (or Cmd+S on Mac). This triggers an immediate save attempt.
2. Check your internet connection. Open another tab and load any website. If that fails, your connection is down. Genesis Writer will automatically retry the save once you're reconnected.
3. Don't close the tab. Your work is still in the editor's memory. As long as you keep the tab open, nothing is lost. Once your connection returns, the save will complete.

Undo Isn't Working

Symptom: Pressing Ctrl+Z (or Cmd+Z) doesn't reverse your last change, or undo history seems incomplete.

Cause: The editor's undo history is session-based. It tracks every change you make from the moment you open a document, but that history is cleared when you close and reopen the editor. There is no cross-session undo.

Solution:

• Within the same session, Ctrl+Z will step backwards through your changes as expected.
• If you've just reopened the editor, the undo stack is empty. Your previous session's changes are saved, but you can't undo them with keyboard shortcuts.
• AI-generated prose is saved to your draft as it's produced, so to remove it just delete it like any other text. You can see exactly what changed — and compare before and after — in the Activity tab.

Can't See AI-Generated Text

Symptom: You clicked Write or Continue, the generation appeared to run successfully, but you can't see any new text in the editor.

Cause: If Prose Mode is active, AI markers are hidden by design — the generated text blends seamlessly into your existing prose. Additionally, the new text may have been appended at the very end of the document, below the current viewport.

Solution:

1. Toggle Prose Mode off. Check the toolbar for the Prose Mode toggle. When off, AI-generated text is highlighted with a subtle marker so you can see exactly what the AI wrote.
2. Scroll to the bottom of your document. Write and Continue always append text at the end of your draft. Auto-scroll should follow the generation, but if you scrolled up during generation, the new text is below.
3. Confirm the generation finished. Generated prose is saved to your draft as it's produced. If no new text appeared and there's no error, the generation may have failed silently — try again.

Formatting Lost After Import

Symptom: You imported a document and the text appears as plain, unformatted paragraphs. Headings, bold, italic, and other formatting are missing.

Cause: Different import formats preserve different levels of formatting:

Solution:

• For the best import experience, use DOCX format. It preserves the most formatting. See Importing Documents.
• If you only have a PDF, know that PDF import is text-only by design. You'll need to reapply formatting manually or convert your PDF to DOCX first using a tool like Google Docs or Microsoft Word.
• Markdown files work well for basic formatting. If your manuscript is in Google Docs, export as DOCX rather than PDF for the best results.

Storage Issues

“Storage quota exceeded”

Symptom: You try to upload an image, generate a portrait, or create a draft image and see an error about exceeding your storage quota.

Cause: Every plan has a storage limit for uploaded and generated images. Your current usage has reached the cap.

Solution:

1. Delete unused images. If you've generated character portraits or draft images you no longer need, removing them frees up space immediately.
2. Check your usage in Settings to see how much storage you've consumed.
3. Upgrade your plan if you need more space. See Storage & Quotas.

Images Not Loading

Symptom: Character portraits, draft images, or style illustrations appear as broken image icons or blank placeholders.

Cause: Images are served from cloud storage. Loading failures are typically caused by a slow or interrupted internet connection, or occasionally by temporary service issues.

Solution:

1. Refresh the page. A simple refresh resolves most image loading issues.
2. Check your internet connection. Large images (especially high-resolution portraits) need a stable connection to load fully.
3. Clear your browser cache. Stale cached data can occasionally prevent images from loading correctly. Clear your cache or try loading in an incognito/private window.
4. Wait a moment. If you just generated a portrait, there may be a brief delay (a few seconds) before the image is available from storage.

Account Issues

Can't Log In

Symptom: You can't sign in to your account. The login page shows an error, redirects unexpectedly, or nothing happens when you click Sign In.

Cause: Login issues usually stem from browser cookies, an unverified email address, or using a different sign-in method than the one you originally registered with.

Solution:

1. Try a different sign-in method. Genesis Writer supports Google and email/password authentication. If you originally signed up with Google, make sure you're clicking the Google sign-in button (not entering an email and password).
2. Check your email verification. If you registered with email/password, your account may not be verified yet. Check your inbox (and spam folder) for a verification email.
3. Clear browser cookies for the Genesis Writer domain, then try again. Third-party cookie restrictions in some browsers can interfere with the authentication flow.
4. Try a different browser or incognito/private window to rule out extension conflicts.

Subscription Not Showing

Symptom: You just subscribed (or upgraded), but the app still shows you on the Free plan. Subscriber features aren't unlocked, or your token balance hasn't updated.

Cause: Subscription changes take a moment to process. There's a brief delay (usually under a minute, occasionally up to a few minutes) between completing payment and your account being updated.

Solution:

1. Wait 2–3 minutes. Most updates complete within seconds, but occasional delays happen.
2. Log out and log back in. This forces the app to refetch your subscription status from the server.
3. Check the Settings page. Navigate to Settings and look at your plan details. If the subscription shows there but features aren't working, try a full page refresh.
4. Check your email. Stripe sends a receipt email when your payment is processed. If you haven't received one, the payment may not have gone through. Check your card details and try again.

Still Stuck?

If none of these solutions resolved your issue, you have a few more options:

• Check the FAQ — your question may already be answered there.
• Use the in-app feedback button to report your issue directly. Include what you were doing, what you expected, and what happened instead. See Getting Help for tips on writing an effective bug report.
• Browse the documentation for the specific feature you're having trouble with. Each feature section has detailed usage guides that may clarify the expected behavior.