---
title: Troubleshooting Tideswell
url: https://tideswell.xyz/docs/troubleshooting
description: The six things that go wrong most often, and the order to check them in so you find the cause quickly.
---

> Documentation index: fetch https://tideswell.xyz/llms.txt to discover every page before exploring further.

# Troubleshooting Tideswell



Most reported problems in Tideswell are one of six things, and nearly all of them are a setting
rather than a fault. This section is organised by the symptom you actually have.

## Start here: the three-layer rule [#start-here-the-three-layer-rule]

Before anything else, know that almost every "it is not there" or "I cannot do that" comes down
to three layers, checked in this order:

1. **Is the module on?** A module switched off makes its pages unreachable rather than hidden,
   so even a bookmark stops working. See <Ref to="workspace-admin/modules" />.
2. **Do you hold the permission?** Each action has a minimum rank. See
   <Ref to="workspace-admin/permissions" />.
3. **In which department?** Most permissions are checked against the **record's** department
   rather than the workspace, so the same person can do something on one task and not the next.

That third layer is the one people miss, and it explains more reports than the other two
combined. <Ref to="concepts/who-can-do-what" /> is the full explanation.

## Which page do you need? [#which-page-do-you-need]

* **A button, a screen or a section is not there.** See
  <Ref to="troubleshooting/missing-button" />.
* **Somebody cannot sign in, or cannot edit something.** See
  <Ref to="troubleshooting/cannot-edit" />.
* **Notifications are not arriving.** See <Ref to="troubleshooting/not-being-notified" />.
* **An automation or workflow did not run.** See
  <Ref to="troubleshooting/automation-did-not-run" />.
* **A number looks wrong.** See <Ref to="troubleshooting/figure-looks-wrong" />.
* **Receiving, a stock correction or an import failed.** See
  <Ref to="troubleshooting/receiving-and-imports" />.

## Two habits that solve most of it [#two-habits-that-solve-most-of-it]

**Read the message.** Tideswell states reasons rather than failing silently: a greyed-out stage
says why on hover, a refused bulk action names how many were refused and why, a skipped
automation run names what was missing. The answer is usually on screen already.

**Trust a blank over a zero.** A dash or a "not recorded" means Tideswell could not read
something and declined to guess. A zero means zero. If a figure looks suspiciously round or
suspiciously empty, that distinction usually explains it.