Troubleshooting
When something isn't behaving, start here. Each problem below explains what the message means, what caused it, and the exact steps to put it right — and points you to the deeper guide when there is one.
A reviewer didn't get the email
Pishik sends every review request automatically the moment a stage activates, so if a reviewer says nothing arrived, the first stop is the Sent page — it records the honest delivery status of every message and lets you resend in one click.
You need to own the contract, hold it by delegation, or be an admin — resend and remind act on the reviewer's live review email.
- Open Sent from the sidebar and find the reviewer in the Awaiting reply zone (or in the delivery log below, filtered to Requests).
- Read the delivery status pill:
- Delivered — Pishik handed the email to your mail channel. It left Pishik successfully, so the hold-up is downstream (the reviewer's inbox, spam filter, or your mail provider).
- Failed — delivery didn't succeed. Hover the red Failed pill to see the reason (for example, the address was rejected).
- Logged — this entry was recorded manually rather than sent, so no email actually went out.
- If the reason is a wrong or mistyped address, fix it first: an admin can correct the reviewer's email in Settings → Reviewers (the address matters because the review link is sent there).
- Click Resend on the reviewer's row to send a fresh copy of their review email, or Remind to send a nudge. Both go out immediately.
- Ask the reviewer to check their spam / junk folder and to allow-list your sending domain, then look again.
Common mistakes — Resend only appears while a reviewer's decision is still pending; once they've approved or rejected there's nothing to resend. And if delivery keeps Failing for everyone, the problem is usually your mail channel, not one address — see Send email from your own domain.
If the reviewer got the email but clicking the button lands on an error page, that's a link problem — see Review link expired, already used, or invalid.
Review link expired, already used, or invalid — what each page means
Review links are personal, single-use, and time-limited by design (that's what keeps them safe against mail scanners that pre-open links). When a reviewer opens one that's no longer usable, Pishik shows a plain page explaining exactly why. Here's what each one means and how to get the reviewer moving again.
| What the reviewer sees | Why | What to do |
|---|---|---|
| “Link expired” “For security, review links expire after a while.” |
The link has passed its expiry window. | Resend the review email from the Sent page — the new link works immediately. A reminder also refreshes the link. |
| “Already recorded” “A decision was already recorded from this link.” |
A decision was already confirmed from this link, so it's closed for good. This is also what forwarded links hit once the first person has decided. | If the reviewer needs to change their answer, reopen their review — see Handle a rejection or Change a review that's already running. A fresh link then goes out. |
| “Link not recognized” “This review link is invalid or belongs to a workspace that no longer exists.” |
The link is malformed, was never valid, or the workspace it pointed to is gone. | Send a fresh review email from the Sent page. If it keeps happening, the address or link may have been altered in transit — contact support. |
| “Please try again” “The workspace was busy for a moment.” |
A transient hiccup while recording the decision. Nothing was recorded. | The reviewer can go back and submit once more — no harm done. |
Good to know — because links are single-use, a reviewer who forwarded theirs will find it closed once the first opener decides. That's the point: it keeps a decision tied to the person you actually asked. Remind reviewers not to forward their link.
Can't sign in: password reset, 2FA at reset, and the suspended-workspace message
Most sign-in trouble is one of three things: a forgotten password, a two-factor snag, or a workspace that's been suspended. Pishik's sign-in errors are deliberately vague about whether an account exists, so the message you see maps to a fix rather than a diagnosis.
“Incorrect email or password”
Reset your password from the sign-in screen:
- On the sign-in screen, click Forgot your password?
- Enter your email and click Send reset link. You'll see: “We've sent a password reset link to <you> if it matches an account. The link expires in one hour. Be sure to check your spam folder.”
- Open the emailed link within the hour and choose a new password. Resetting your password signs you out on every other device.
Note — for your privacy, that confirmation appears whether or not the address has an account, so it's never proof one exists. If no email arrives, check spam, confirm you used the right address, and give it a minute. If an admin needs to help, they can send you a reset link too — see Admin-sent password resets.
Two-factor at reset
If your account has two-factor authentication, the reset page asks for a second factor as well — resetting a password only proves you control the email, so it can't be used to walk around 2FA. On the reset page you'll see a Two-factor code field:
- Enter the 6-digit code from your authenticator app, or one of your backup codes, alongside your new password.
- Submit. A wrong code shows “That two-factor code doesn't match — check your authenticator app or use a backup code.”
Lost your authenticator and every backup code? A reset won't get you in on its own — see Lost your authenticator AND backup codes.
“This workspace has been suspended”
If your password is correct but you see “This workspace has been suspended. Contact support if you believe this is a mistake”, the whole workspace has been put on hold — no one on it can sign in, and its review links and emails go quiet too. There's nothing to fix from the sign-in screen: contact support to sort it out.
Too many tries? Repeated attempts can trip a temporary limit (“Too many attempts — try again later”). Wait a few minutes and try once more — details in rate limits explained.
Lost your authenticator AND backup codes — what happens now
Read this before you're in trouble, because the honest answer depends entirely on what you still have.
You still have one backup code
You're fine. At the two-factor step, type a backup code into the same box you'd normally enter your app's 6-digit code — each backup code works once and gets you straight in. Then, as soon as you're signed in, restore your second factor and mint fresh codes:
- Go to Settings → Your profile → Security.
- Re-pair your authenticator app if you've changed phones, and generate a new set of backup codes. Generating a new set invalidates all previous codes, so save the new ones somewhere safe.
You've lost both your authenticator and every backup code
Then there is no self-serve recovery, and that's deliberate. Your backup codes are stored only as one-way hashes, so Pishik can't reproduce them for you — and because a password reset also asks for a second factor, resetting your password won't let you skip 2FA. For the same reason, an admin can't switch off two-factor on your behalf (turning it off requires your password and a current code).
- Contact support from — or clearly identifying — the email address on the account.
- Be ready to verify your identity. Recovery of a fully locked-out two-factor account is handled case by case and can't be guaranteed.
This is exactly why backup codes matter. When you turn on two-factor, Pishik shows your backup codes once — download them or drop them in a password manager right then. See Backup codes and 2FA recovery for the full lifecycle.
Invite codes and teammate invite links: expired, used, or never arrived
There are two different kinds of invite in Pishik, and they fail — and get fixed — in different ways.
A beta invite code (to create a workspace)
Beta codes look like PISHIK-XXXX-XXXX and are single-use. If the signup wizard says “That invite code isn't valid or was already used” or “A valid beta invite code is required”, the code has already been redeemed or was mistyped.
- Double-check you typed it exactly, including the dashes.
- If it was genuinely used once already, you'll need a new one — request an invite. We review requests and email you a fresh single-use code.
Note — one code creates one workspace. It can't be reused to add teammates; that's what the invite links below are for. See Request an invite and redeem your code.
A teammate invite link (to join an existing workspace)
When an admin invites you, you get a personal link that lets you set a password and join. These links expire after 30 days and are single-use. An expired or already-used link shows a “Link not recognized” page.
- Ask your workspace admin to re-send your invite from Settings → Team & users. That mints a fresh link and invalidates the old one.
- If email didn't reach you, check spam — and your admin can copy your personal invite link and send it to you directly.
Already joined but can't get in? An admin deliberately can't re-invite someone who has already joined (they'll see “That person has already joined — send them a password reset instead”) — that block prevents account takeover. The fix is a password reset, not a new invite. If your email is already a member, a re-invite is blocked with “That person is already a member of your workspace.”
A contract seems stuck — why hasn't the next stage started?
Pishik advances a review on its own: when a stage is fully approved it automatically emails the next stage's reviewers. So if nothing is moving, one of a few specific conditions is holding it. Open the contract and check its flow map against this list.
| What you see | Why it's not advancing | What to do |
|---|---|---|
| It's still in Draft | The review was never started, so no one has been emailed. | Open it and start the review, or use the Start button on the Draft card. See Build the flow and start the review. |
| In Review, with a reviewer still pending | A stage only completes — and the next stage's reviewers are only emailed — once every reviewer in the current stage has approved. Reviewers in the same stage review in parallel, so one slow approver holds the whole stage. | Check the flow map for who's still Pending and nudge them with Remind (or from the Sent page). |
| Needs Attention, marked rejected | A reviewer rejected, which halts the workflow — Pishik stops sending and waits for you. Nothing advances until the rejection is resolved. | Resolve it: fix the issue and resend to the rejecter, or revise & restart. See Handle a rejection. |
| Needs Attention, on hold | The contract was placed on hold, so it sits out of the active flow. | Take it off hold when you're ready for it to move again. |
Good to know — a stage with no reviewers can never complete, so Pishik won't let a review start into an empty stage. If you added a stage but left it without anyone assigned, add a reviewer and it will activate. How stages and parallel reviewers advance is covered in full under Sequential stages, parallel reviewers.
A reviewer can't open the document (share-link permissions)
Pishik never stores your files — it stores the share link you paste and points reviewers at the document in your own SharePoint, OneDrive, or Google Drive. So when a reviewer is blocked, asked to sign in, or sees “request access,” the cause is the sharing permission on the link itself, which lives entirely in your storage. Pishik can't see or change it.
You need access to the sharing settings for the document in your storage provider (SharePoint, OneDrive, or Google Drive).
- Test the link the way an outsider would: open it in a private / incognito window (or while signed out of your work account). If you get an access wall there, so will your reviewer.
- In your storage provider, check who the share link grants access to. A link scoped to your organization only will block an external reviewer; a link scoped to specific people must include the reviewer's address.
- Re-scope the link so the intended reviewers can open it (org members, or the named people you're emailing), then copy the working link.
- Update the document link on the contract, then Resend the review email so the reviewer gets the corrected link.
Common mistake — reaching for “Anyone with the link” to make the problem disappear. That hands access to anyone the link reaches, including through forwards. Scope to your org or to named reviewers instead. Full guidance, including how editing and redlining rights follow the link, is in Scope your share links safely.
“Someone else edited this” and session expiry mid-edit: how sync, conflicts, and recovery work
Both of these look alarming and neither loses your work. Here's what each message means and what (if anything) you need to do.
“Workspace was updated elsewhere — refreshed to the latest”
A teammate's change — or an automatic one, like a reviewer's decision landing — reached the workspace while you had it open. Pishik has already pulled in the newer version for you, and it does this without overwriting whatever you were typing. You don't need to do anything. If you were mid-edit, your text is preserved and saved on top of the latest.
Pishik keeps everyone on the same copy by checking the server every 20–25 seconds and whenever you return to the tab. The full mechanism is in Autosave, background sync, and picking up where you left off.
“Your session ended” while you were working
Sessions can end mid-use — you've been away a long while, or an admin reset your password. Instead of dumping you at sign-in and losing your changes, Pishik holds your unsaved work safely and shows a blocking dialog to sign back in on the spot. No page reload, and your held changes save the moment you're back in.
- In the Your session ended dialog, enter your password and click Sign in & save my work.
- If your account has two-factor, a Two-factor check step appears — enter your authenticator code or a backup code and click Verify & save my work.
- You're back exactly where you were, and your pinned changes are saved.
The one exception — if your workspace has just started requiring two-factor and your account hasn't enrolled, you'll see Two-factor setup needed and a Reload & set up button. A reload is needed to run enrollment; your held work is restored right after the fresh sign-in. See Require 2FA for your whole workspace.
“Try again later”: rate limits explained
To protect accounts from guessing and the service from abuse, Pishik caps how often certain actions can be attempted in a short window. When you hit a cap, the action pauses and you'll see a message like one of these:
- “Too many attempts — try again later.” (signing in, verifying an email, two-factor)
- “Too many requests — try again later.” (password reset)
- “Too many messages — please try again later.” (the contact form)
- “Invite limit reached — try again later.” (sending teammate invites)
- On a public page, such as a review link, a “Please try again” screen.
None of these means anything is broken or that you've done something wrong. The limit is simply telling you to slow down.
- Wait a few minutes, then try once. The limit clears on its own after a short cool-down.
- Don't hammer the button — rapid retries just keep you at the ceiling.
- On a shared office network or VPN, several people can share one address and reach a limit together. Trying from a different connection can help.
Why no numbers? We don't publish the exact thresholds or windows — doing so would only help someone trying to game them. If you're hitting a limit during ordinary use and a short wait doesn't clear it, contact support and tell us what you were doing.