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Most knowledge problems come down to one of four things: the article is not published, its folder is not connected to the agent, the agent’s change was never published, or the fact is not in a passage the search can find. Work through the checks below in order.

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The agent ignores an article

Open it from Knowledge. If the badge reads Draft (“Draft. Your agent can’t use this article until you publish it.”), click Publish. If it reads Unpublished changes, the agent still uses the version published on the date shown; only the published version counts, so click Publish to send your edits.
Click Agent in the sidebar, open the agent and check the Knowledge tab. The folder that contains the article must be switched on. If several agents handle your channels, check the one connected to the channel the conversation came in on.
Connecting a folder is a draft change on the agent. If the header still shows Publish changes, live conversations are using the previous setup. Click it and publish. See Test and publish.
Click See what your agent reads on the article. The agent matches passages, not whole articles. If the sentence you expect it to use sits in a passage full of other topics, give it its own heading or its own article, publish, and test again in Test your agent.
The agent reads each folder’s description to decide which folder to search. Pick the folder on Knowledge, open the ⋯ menu next to the picker, choose Rename folder and write a description that names the topics inside it. The agent takes a folder’s name and description when you save the agent, so save and publish the agent afterwards, for example together with your next change on it.
Instructions that tell the agent to keep answers short, stay on products, or never discuss a topic can stop it from searching. Review them with Writing agent instructions.
To see what really happened, open the conversation in the Inbox and look under the AI reply. Searched the knowledge base with a Sources (N) or Details button means the agent searched; the button opens Message source, where Knowledge used lists the articles the agent cited, or links to the folder it searched when it cited none. No such line means the agent did not search knowledge for that reply.

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The agent gives outdated answers

  • The agent uses the last published version. Open the article and click History to see which version is live and when it was published. If your correction is sitting in a draft, click Publish.
  • Right after publishing, the previous version stays live while the new one is prepared (the badge reads Publishing…). Give it a moment and test again. If a Still publishing banner appears, click Check again in a few minutes.
  • Imported pages and documents are a copy taken at import time. When your website changes, the article does not update itself: edit the article and publish, or import the page again and delete the old one.
  • Pages captured during onboarding are live from the start with the text your website had at that time. If that page is now wrong, delete the article and import the page again from its link, or write the correct version as a new article and delete the old one.
  • Two articles that contradict each other can both be matched. Search Knowledge for the topic and delete or merge duplicates.
A failed import shows Couldn’t import this page with a reason underneath. When Popcorn has no readable reason, the line reads “Check that the link opens in your browser, then try again.” Popcorn fetches one page per import; links inside the page are not followed. Import each page separately.

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Uploading a document fails

A failed upload shows Couldn’t import this document with a reason underneath, or “Check that the file opens and isn’t password protected, then try again.”
  • Supported types are PDF, Word (.doc, .docx), plain text, CSV, JSON and HTML, up to 20 MB. The file picker only offers these types; any other type is refused.
  • The file appears to have no readable text. means no text could be extracted. Scanned PDFs are images, not text; export the document with text or paste the content.
  • Reading that document is taking too long — please try again means extraction passed 25 seconds. Split the document or try again.
  • A password-protected file cannot be read. Remove the password and upload it again.

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A folder name is rejected

The Name field shows Use English letters and numbers, starting with a letter. when the name uses non-Latin letters (such as Arabic), is too long once Popcorn converts it, is only a reserved word, or has no letters or numbers. A folder with this name already exists. means another folder has the same name, and Enter a folder name. means the field was empty. The dialog stays open so you can change the name and try again. The full rules are in Create folders and articles. Descriptions have no such rules and can be in any language, including Arabic.

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I cannot publish

  • Publish is disabled and shows You don’t have permission to publish when your role cannot publish knowledge. Owners, Admins and Managers can; Agents and Viewers cannot. Ask an Owner or Admin to publish, or to change your role under Settings → Roles and permissions; a custom role needs Full access on Knowledge base. See Team and roles.
  • Publish is disabled and shows Nothing new to publish when the article is already published and you have not edited it.
  • Restore is disabled and shows You don’t have permission to restore versions when your role cannot edit knowledge.
  • Couldn’t publish this article with no further detail: the dialog stays open so you can retry. If it keeps failing, click Save draft, reload the page and try again.
  • The badge reads Publish failed and a banner says “Your agent is still using the previous version.”: click Publish again.
  • Couldn’t save your draft means the draft was not saved. Keep the page open and click Save draft again before you leave.

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Restore replaced my draft

Restore in Version history creates a new draft from the chosen version and replaces the draft you had. Popcorn warns before doing so when you have unpublished edits. The published version is untouched, so nothing changed for customers; use Compare to see what differed and re-apply your edits.

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An article or folder is gone

  • Deleting an article or a folder is permanent and removes the content from the agent immediately. There is no trash. If it was imported, import it again; if it was written in Popcorn, rewrite it.
  • Article not found (“It may have been deleted.”) on an article page means it was deleted, or the link belongs to a different workspace.

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Still stuck?

Click Help in the sidebar and choose Ask Nour, or write to support with the article title, the agent name, and a link to the conversation where the answer went wrong.