The widget shows on your storefront, but when a shopper sends a message the AI either doesn't respond, gives a shallow answer, or hands every conversation over to a human. This article walks through the diagnostic order.
In this article
First, confirm the widget itself is connected
Reason 1 — Your AI resolution limit is reached
Reason 2 — Indexing is still running
Reason 3 — The conversation was handed over
Reason 4 — The question is outside Convi's knowledge
Reason 5 — A configured ability is failing
Reason 6 — A back-end outage
Diagnostic checklist
Contacting support
First, confirm the widget itself is connected
If the widget bubble opens but pressing Send produces no visible response at all (not even a "Thinking…" placeholder), start with Troubleshooting: Widget Not Appearing — the three storefront conditions need to be met for the widget to even talk to the backend.
Once you've confirmed the widget is live and you can send a message, work through the reasons below in order.
Reason 1 — Your AI resolution limit is reached
The most common cause for "the AI suddenly stopped responding."
How to check: Open Home. If your plan's monthly resolution allowance is exhausted, you'll see a banner:
"You've hit your monthly AI conversations cap. You've used all {N} AI conversations on the {plan} plan. New shoppers are now handed over to your team. Upgrade for more conversations or wait {N} days for the cycle to reset."
What happens when the cap is hit:
The AI pauses answering new conversations.
New conversations are handed over to your team automatically. You'll see them in the Conversations inbox with the Needs you badge.
Conversations the AI is already in keep running.
Fix it: Upgrade in Settings → Plan, or wait for the cycle to reset. The exact reset date is shown on the banner and on the Plan usage card.
ℹ️ Note: Only AI-resolved conversations count toward your quota. Conversations that handed over to a human don't.
Reason 2 — Indexing is still running
If you just installed Convi or just added a lot of new products, the catalog might still be indexing.
How to check: Open Home → Import Health. If any source shows Syncing instead of Synced, indexing isn't done.
Symptoms: The AI responds, but says it doesn't know about products it should know about, or answers product questions vaguely.
Fix it: Wait. Initial indexing is typically 1–2 minutes for small catalogs and a few minutes for large ones. Re-check status on the Storefront status card to force a check.
Reason 3 — The conversation was handed over
If you've enabled Handover to human in Automate mode and one of your handover scenarios fires, the AI stops responding on that conversation — you've taken over.
How to check: Open the conversation in Conversations. If you see the banner "The chat hand-overed to you. Feel free to share your own suggestions or ideas beyond the AI's input.", the conversation is in human mode.
Fix it: Either reply as a human, or click Give back to AI in the session header to hand the conversation back. See Taking Over from the AI (Manual Handover) for the full breakdown.
Reason 4 — The question is outside Convi's knowledge
The AI is responding, but to many questions it says "I don't have that information" or offers handover.
Symptoms: Specific topics get vague answers — sizing, custom shipping rules, brand-specific FAQs, bundle policies.
How to diagnose:
Open Analyze → Recommendations — every flagged question is a real knowledge gap. The top items are what shoppers most often ask Convi to answer and can't.
Open Train → Content — check that your custom FAQs cover the topic.
Open Evaluate → Pre-flight — run all 5 tests. Any failure has a one-click "Add knowledge" path.
Fix it: Use Add answer on each recommendation to turn it into a custom FAQ. See Managing Your Knowledge Base and How the Convi AI Learns.
Reason 5 — A configured ability is failing
If a specific ability isn't working (order tracking always says "I can't find that order", cancellations never go through), the ability itself may be misconfigured.
How to diagnose:
Open Train → Abilities and confirm the ability is Active (not Inactive or locked by plan).
Read the ability's Prerequisite line on the card:
Handover to human → "Prerequisite: Handover email configured."
Order cancellation → "Prerequisite: Cancellation policy written; refund window set."
Edit shipping address → "Prerequisite: Rules for edit window."
Open the ability's Configure panel and review the custom prompt and scenarios.
Fix it: Walk the failing scenario through Evaluate → Playground to see what the assistant says, then either adjust the ability's prompt, add a knowledge entry, or update the rule in Train → Rules.
Reason 6 — A back-end outage
Rare, but possible. If the AI was responding fine yesterday and suddenly nothing works at all (no response in Playground either), it could be a temporary back-end issue.
How to check: Try Evaluate → Playground. If even the Playground produces no response or shows an error, the issue is on the back end, not your configuration.
Fix it: Contact support — see Contacting Convi Support.
Diagnostic checklist
If you want to be thorough, run through this in order:
Home → Plan usage — under quota? If at cap → Reason 1.
Home → Import Health — all sources Synced? If syncing → Reason 2.
Conversations → the affected session — handover banner? If yes → Reason 3.
Evaluate → Playground — does the same question work in sandbox?
Yes → the live widget and Convi are fine; it's a knowledge/ability issue → Reasons 4–5.
No → back-end issue → Reason 6.
Analyze → Recommendations — review knowledge gaps.
Contacting support
If you've worked through the checklist and the AI still isn't responding correctly, contact us with:
The shop domain.
A specific conversation ID (the URL in Conversations has it:
/conversations/{sessionId}).A short description of what you expected vs what happened.
See Contacting Convi Support.