Troubleshooting

Something does not show, or looks wrong? Find your symptom below, then work through its checks in order. The most likely cause always comes first.

A widget does not show

What you see: a page where you placed a widget, but no widget appears.

Four things must all be true before a widget can show. Check them in this order:

1. Open Settings in the app and check the App active switch. Turn it on and click Save if it is off. See Launch checklist & app health.
2. In the theme editor, open the App embeds panel. Check that PersonalizerAI is on. See Add widgets to your theme.
3. Open Widgets and find the page on the Store pages tab. A placed block shows the badge Live on your published theme, or On this theme on an unpublished one. If the block is not listed, the page shows an Add button for it instead, for example Add Recommendations. Click it, place the block in the theme editor, and click Save. The Diagnostics tab counts the widgets on each page. If a page row there says "Couldn't check. Reload to try again.", the app could not read that theme file: reload the page. "No template found for this page" means the theme really has no template for that page.
4. Check the model's minimum data in the table on Model settings that matter. Below the minimums, a fallback model serves — the model picker states the exact shortfall.

Check 2 — the PersonalizerAI app embed in the theme editor. Off means no widgets at all.

Check 1 — the app status section at the top of Settings. Paused stops every widget and search.

Two widgets hide by design in specific situations:

• The cart drawer and cart page widgets stay hidden on an empty cart — the model has nothing to read. See Models: product relationships.
• A Replenishment widget shows nothing to guests. The model always needs a signed-in customer with past orders. See Models: personalized.

Turn on debug mode

Debug mode makes the app write extra detail to your browser console. Support can ask for it. There is one switch, and it is in the theme editor:

1. In your Shopify admin, open the theme editor for the theme you are testing.
2. Open the App embeds panel.
3. Open the settings of the PersonalizerAI embed.
4. Turn on Enable debug mode.
5. Click Save.
6. Open the storefront page and open your browser console.

Recommendations look wrong or empty

What you see: a widget renders, but the products are missing, too few, or not what you expect.

1. Check that the first sync is complete. Open Settings → Data sync in the PersonalizerAI dashboard and check that the Status column shows Healthy. See Your first data sync.
2. Check your excluded tags on the Models tab. Products with an excluded tag never appear — in any widget, model, or curation. See Model settings that matter.
3. Check your hand-picked curations. Picks with an excluded tag are dropped before serving. If every pick is excluded, the widget falls back to its regular model. See Hand-picked & custom models.
4. Check for queued products. Products over your plan's product limit stay out of recommendations until you upgrade or reduce the catalog. See Data sync settings.
5. Check the block's Recommendation model setting in the theme editor. On Widgets → Store pages, click Edit in theme editor on the block to open it. See How recommendations work.
6. Check Recommendations → Models that the widget's model is not Off. A model that is off serves its fallback model instead.
7. Check the sold-out setting on Search → Basics. With Hide, a widget can show fewer products than its slot count. See Ranking, curations & facets.
8. Check the placement's chain on the Fallback Chains tab (Growth plan and up). A saved chain replaces the built-in one. Click Reset to default to go back. See How recommendations work.
9. After a big catalog change, if the products still look wrong, clear the recommendation cache. Open Settings → Advanced in the PersonalizerAI dashboard. In Danger zone, find Clear recommendation cache and click Clear cache. Type your store's address to confirm. See Reset settings or clear the cache for what happens next.

My custom blend does not show

What you see: a block with a Custom model slug set shows the fallback models instead of your blend.

1. Check that the block sits on a product page. A custom blend needs a product to anchor to — other pages always show the fallback models. See Hand-picked & custom models.
2. Check the blend's status on the Custom Blends tab. Only an Active blend serves — Draft, Queued, Computing, Validating, Paused, and Error all show the fallback models instead. Click Retry on an Error row.
3. Check the slug in the theme editor's Custom model slug field. Copy the slug again from the Custom Blends tab — a typo never shows an error, only the fallback models.
4. Check your plan. Custom blends need the Pro plan or higher, and a downgrade pauses blends above the new limit. See Plans, billing & limits.

Search results look stale or odd

What you see: search shows old prices or images, misses a new product, or behaves in a way you did not set up.

1. Wait a few minutes after a catalog change. Shopify notifies the app when a product changes, but the update is not instant. See Data sync settings.
2. Check the Recent webhook activity table under Settings → Data sync. Many Error rows on product topics mean your data can go stale.
3. Run Force full sync on the same tab. The operation is additive and safe — existing data stays in place.
4. Check for a redirect on the query. A redirect sends a submitted query to a page instead of results. Pause it with its Enabled switch on the Redirects card of the Query rules tab. See Synonyms & redirects.
5. Check your synonym groups. A one-way group works in one direction only — the root term finds the synonyms, not the reverse.
6. Check your merchandising rules (Growth plan and up). A Bury or Exclude rule can push products down or remove them, and looks like broken search. See Merchandising rules.
7. Check for queued products. Products over your plan's product limit are not in the search index. See Data sync settings.
8. Check your search curations. A curation with no pinned or hidden products has no effect on results. Open it and add at least one pin or hide. See Ranking, curations & facets.
9. Check the sold-out setting on the Basics tab. Hide removes sold-out products from the results and from the filter counts. Demote moves them to the end, even when the shopper selects a sort.
10. Check the filter pills above the results. A pill marked "(from your search)" is a filter that AI query understanding made from the shopper's words. If a tag filter hides good products, stop that tag with Tags AI search never filters on on the Basics tab. See How search works.
11. Check your stopwords on the Language tab. A word in the list is removed from every query, so a search for that word alone finds nothing. See Synonyms & redirects.

My analytics numbers differ from Shopify's reports

What you see: the PersonalizerAI dashboard shows less revenue, or fewer orders, than your Shopify sales reports.

This is expected. Both are correct — they answer different questions. Shopify counts everything you sold; PersonalizerAI counts only what it can prove it helped sell. Check these differences before you assume a fault:

1. Compare the time windows. Set both reports to the same date range.
2. Remember the click rule: only orders with a real shopper click count. A view alone never counts.
3. Check the attribution levels: same-visit orders count at 50%, and clicked-product orders count the clicked products only. See How we measure revenue.
4. Remember the exclusions: point-of-sale, draft, and marketplace orders never count, and refunds are not subtracted afterward.
5. Check the freshness: the dashboard refreshes once per night. Shopify's reports are closer to live.

If the gap is still unexplained after these checks, contact support with both numbers and the date range.

Review stars do not show

What you see: product cards in widgets or search show no star ratings.

1. Check that your store runs a review app that works with PersonalizerAI. The list is under Works automatically.
2. Check that Show rating stars is on, under Design → Cards. See Style your widgets.
3. Check for the badge Detected on your store under Settings → Integrations.
4. If the badge is missing, run Force full sync, then check again. Detection reads review data from your catalog during sync. Fera, Vitals, and Klaviyo Reviews never show the badge, and Yotpo may not. Their stars still show.
5. If the badge is still missing, check that your reviews app publishes ratings to product metafields. Most do this on their own. For Yotpo, turn on its Shopify metafields sync. For Stamped.io, ask Stamped support to turn on its metafield sync.

Translated product text does not show

What you see: search results or widgets show product titles and descriptions in your store's main language, not in the shopper's language.

1. Check that the language is published in Shopify, under Settings → Languages. The app reads only published languages.
2. Check that your translation app saves its translations in Shopify. The apps that do are listed under Works automatically. Weglot does not: it translates your pages outside Shopify, so its translations never reach your catalog.
3. Run Force full sync. New translations reach search and widgets on the next catalog sync.

A checkout or after-purchase widget does not show

What you see: the checkout upsell, thank-you carousel, or post-purchase offer is missing, but storefront widgets work.

These widgets render inside Shopify's own secure surfaces. The block must be in your checkout layout. There is no switch in the app that turns one on or off, and the app cannot report what Shopify has placed. Check in the checkout editor.

1. In your Shopify admin, go to Settings → Checkout and click Customize.
2. Select the page you expect the widget on, for example the thank-you page.
3. Look for the PersonalizerAI block. Add it if it is not there.
4. Click Save. See Checkout & after purchase.
5. For the checkout page block only, check the Checkout page in the PersonalizerAI dashboard, and that Show PersonalizerAI on your checkout is on. The block reads its settings from there.

The app says a limit is reached

What you see: a banner on the Home or Billing screen names a limit — recommendations, searches, or products.

The app never stops and never charges an overage. Each limit has its own, mild effect:

1. Read the banner — it names the limit and states exactly what changed. At 80%, the banner only warns; nothing degrades yet.
2. Over the recommendations limit: personalization pauses, and widgets based on a shopper's own browsing or orders show trending products and best sellers instead. Product-page and cart recommendations keep serving as normal. Your pins and exclusions still apply. No action is required.
3. Over the searches limit: search keeps working, in keyword mode. AI search returns when the month resets.
4. Over the product limit: open Settings → Data sync and review the Products over your plan limit card. Upgrade, or reduce the catalog below the limit.
5. To lift a monthly limit now, upgrade on the Billing screen. The higher limit applies at once.

On the first day of the next month, the counters reset and full service returns on its own. See Plans, billing & limits.

Reset settings or clear the cache

The Danger zone on Settings → Advanced in the PersonalizerAI dashboard has two actions. You cannot undo them. Each one asks you to type your store's address (for example your-store.myshopify.com) before it runs.

Before you contact support

Email support@personalizerai.com. The Help & support section of Settings in your Shopify admin, and the Help page in the PersonalizerAI dashboard, link to the same address. We typically reply within one business day.

Include this information, so we can reproduce the problem fast:

• Your Store ID and shop domain. In your Shopify admin, the Connected store section of Settings shows both, with a Copy button for the Store ID. In the PersonalizerAI dashboard, the Help page shows both.
• The storefront page URL where you see the problem.
• The widget or screen name, and the model if you know it.
• A screenshot of what you see.
• What you expected instead, and when it started.