# Troubleshooting Guide — Start Here

_Troubleshooting_

Something broken? Start here. Each scenario below covers what you're seeing (blank page, can't log in, sync errors, billing questions) and walks you through the fixes in order from quickest to heaviest. If none of these resolve it, jump to the specific feature's article — every section has its own Common Issues + Error Messages list.

## Steps
1. Page is blank / you see a white screen / nothing is loading → 1) Try Chrome or Edge if you're on a different browser. 2) Hard-refresh the page: Cmd+Shift+R on Mac, Ctrl+Shift+R on Windows. 3) Open an incognito / private window and log in there. 4) Clear your browser cache (browser Settings > Privacy > Clear browsing data). 5) Check whether only this one page is broken or every page — note the page URL either way. 6) If nothing above works, check status.crmown.io for a platform-wide outage.
2. Emails / calendar / tasks aren't syncing, or you don't see recent messages → Go to Settings > Communications > Connected Accounts. Look for a red "Error" or "Reconnect needed" badge on your Gmail / Outlook / iCloud connection. If the token expired, click Disconnect and then Connect again. If a sync category (Email / Calendar / Tasks) shows "never" under Last sync, click Sync Now. Confirm you connected the right account — the email address is shown next to the provider icon.
3. Can't log in / password isn't working / you're locked out → 1) Check Caps Lock. 2) Visit /forgot-password and reset via the email you received at signup. 3) If your org admin recently removed you or you were deactivated, password reset won't work — ask an admin to re-enable your account under Settings > Account > Members. 4) Try a different browser or an incognito window in case a cached cookie is corrupt. 5) If your org uses SSO (Google / Microsoft), click the SSO button for your provider, not the email/password form.
4. Billing / invoice / refund / subscription questions → Go to Settings > Billing. You'll see your current plan, next billing date, payment method on file, and invoice history. To cancel, click Cancel Subscription at the bottom of the page. For refund requests, email support@crmown.com — include your org name and the charge date. If a card declined, check whether the card expired and update it under Payment Methods.
5. You can't find a feature that should exist / a menu item is missing → 1) Your plan may not include it — check Settings > Billing to see what's included. 2) Pro and Max tiers unlock additional features beyond Starter. 3) Features grouped into Suites (Web Studio, Automation, Marketing, Comm Pro, etc.) need to be activated under Settings > Billing > Suite Add-ons. 4) Some features require OWNER or ADMIN role — if you're on TEAM role, ask an admin whether the feature is restricted.
6. The app feels slow / pages take forever to load / scrolling lags → 1) Very large contact lists (10,000+) can slow rendering — use filters to narrow the view. 2) Close browser tabs you're not using. 3) Browser extensions can interfere — open an incognito window (which disables most extensions) and compare. 4) Check your internet connection speed; anything below 10 Mbps can feel sluggish on a data-heavy page.
7. You see a specific error message on screen → Search the exact error text in this training guide (use Ctrl+F / Cmd+F on this page). Most errors are documented under the relevant feature's Error Messages section. If you can't find it, take a screenshot, copy the exact error text, note the page URL + what you were doing, and email support@crmown.com.
8. AI assistant / AI command bar isn't responding → 1) Check Settings > AI Usage to see how many AI tokens you have left for the month. 2) If you're on BYOK (Bring Your Own Key), confirm your provider API key is entered under Settings > AI. 3) Try a simple command first (e.g. "show my contacts") to rule out syntax issues. 4) If you've exhausted your monthly quota, either upgrade your plan or wait for the quota to reset on the 1st of next month.
9. Settings > AI Usage shows 30 days but Recent AI Receipts seems to stop after today → The receipts table lists the newest actions only (50 at a time), so a busy day can fill it entirely; the footer says "Showing X of Y actions" and Show more loads further back, up to the newest 500. The totals and the Usage by User / Model / Feature panels above it always cover the whole period you selected, so nothing is missing from the numbers. The Daily Usage chart is on a log scale because one heavy day can otherwise flatten the rest of the month to nothing — hover any bar for the exact tokens.
10. You attached an image to the AI Bar and got "Image attachments aren't supported on your current AI provider" → Your org is on a BYOK provider whose model only reads text (DeepSeek, Cohere, Perplexity, SambaNova). Ask the question without the image, or switch to a vision-capable provider under Settings > AI Usage > AI Configuration — CRMown AI's own budget, Anthropic, OpenAI, Google, Azure and Amazon Bedrock all read images.

## Tips
- Before escalating, try this: note your browser + version, the exact URL, the exact error text, and what you clicked right before it broke. A screenshot helps. support@crmown.com will ask for this anyway.
- A surprising number of "broken" situations are just stale browser tabs — a hard refresh (Cmd+Shift+R / Ctrl+Shift+R) resolves them.
- Every feature in CRMown has its own training article with a Common Issues + Error Messages section. If your problem is specific to one area (Pipeline, Contacts, Inbox, etc.), find that article first — you'll get faster, more specific answers than here.

## Example
"The dashboard is blank!" Josie opens this troubleshooting guide, walks step 1, hard-refreshes with Cmd+Shift+R, and is back in action in 30 seconds — no ticket needed. The stale tab had been open overnight while the web app deployed new code.