When something is not working
The things that go wrong most often, what actually causes each one, and what to do about it. Almost all of them are one of three things: the site is not published, the address is not pointing here yet, or a change was never saved.
The short version
- Check it in a private window first. Your browser keeps copies.
- If the free address works and your domain does not, it is DNS, and DNS takes hours.
- If nothing works, check the site is published.
- If your edits are missing, check you saved.
- Almost nothing here is broken. Most of it is waiting.
My site is not loading at all
Work down this list in order. The first three account for nearly every case.
Is it published? Your website overview says. A site you have built but never published is private, and its address returns nothing.
Does it have an address? A published site with no address is still unreachable, because there is nowhere to reach it. Either pick the free address or connect a domain.
Is your subscription active? Sites stop being served when a subscription lapses. If a payment failed you will have email about it, and fixing the card brings everything back exactly as it was.
My domain shows someone else's page, or an error
The domain is not pointing here yet. Typing it into your settings tells us you intend to use it; it does not move the domain. Until the record at your registrar points here, visitors get whatever your registrar shows by default.
Open the domain under Domains and create the record shown on its DNS records tab, then use Check again. If it still says it is not pointing here, wait a few hours. Registrars publish changes on their own schedule.
It works on the free address but not my domain
Then your site is fine and the problem is only the domain. That is genuinely good news, because it means there is nothing to fix in the editor and nothing to rebuild. You are waiting on DNS.
My changes are not showing up
Did you save? Edits are held until you save, so you can move between pages freely. A dot appears on every file you have changed and on the Files tab, which is the reliable signal that something is waiting.
Are you looking at the live site or the editor? They can differ if there is unsaved work.
Is your browser showing you an old copy? Open the site in a private or incognito window. That is the closest thing to seeing it the way a stranger does.
I changed one page and it changed everywhere
You edited the header, the footer or a site-wide style, and those appear on every page by design. A dialog appears when that happens, offering to keep it site-wide or undo it, and for a site-wide style, to pull it back to just the page you are on.
If it already went everywhere and you did not want that, the page's version history will put it back.
Nobody is receiving my form submissions
Entries are always saved, so nothing is lost even when email is not arriving. Check the form's entries list first to confirm submissions are actually coming in.
If entries are there but the email is not, open the form's Notifications tab: check that Email us each submission is on and who it is sent to, and check the spam folder for those people.
My emails are going to spam, or not arriving
Sending from your own domain requires DNS records that prove the mail is really from you. Until those are verified, mail either does not send or arrives looking suspicious to the receiving mail server.
Email Settings on the Campaigns page, or the domain's Email tab under Domains, shows each record and whether we can see it. As with a website domain, creating them is quick and having them take effect is not.
If campaigns have stopped going out altogether, the Campaigns page says whether they are on hold and why.
A feature disappeared
Features that are add-ons come off your published site when the add-on is removed from your subscription. Your content is never deleted: products and members stay saved, they just stop being served. Your own code and tracking scripts work the same way if your subscription lapses.
Add the add-on back and everything returns as it was.
A member cannot get in
If they can sign in but members-only pages send them to their account page, they have no membership. On a site that charges, membership is what opens those pages, and signing in on its own is not enough. The Members page shows who is paying, who has free access, and whose payment has failed.
A member whose card was declined keeps their access for a few days while Stripe retries it, and they are emailed to update it. If it never goes through, the membership ends and they are back to being a signed-in visitor.
If nobody can join at all, open Membership Settings. There are two separate reasons it can happen, and the Members page names the one that applies. Either payouts are not connected, so there is no way to take the payment. Or a price was set before Stripe was connected, in which case the price was never sent to Stripe and saving it again publishes it.
Stripe sometimes asks for more about you after you are already taking payments, most often proof of identity. When it does, the Payouts panel lists exactly what it wants and gives you a button straight back to Stripe. Payments keep working in the meantime, but only until the date shown. Send what it asks for before then and nothing is interrupted.
I am told I cannot do something
Some things are limited to owners and admins: the team, billing, taking payments, and moving a domain away. Changing somebody's role is the owner's alone. Everything about the content of your sites is open to everybody on the workspace.
If a control is showing but not usable, it says why in place rather than hiding itself, so the sentence next to it is the actual reason.
I have run out of credits
Editing by hand is free and unlimited and keeps working. Your live site is untouched and your visitors see nothing different.
On a paid plan, an owner or admin can buy extra credits at any time without changing the plan, in Organization settings on the Build credits tab. Or wait for your monthly credits to reset.
None of this describes my problem
Open Help, the question-mark button at the top right of the screen, and describe what is happening in your own words. If the guides do not cover it, you are offered a way to reach a person, and that is the right outcome rather than a fallback.