Common fixes

Find the thing that's going wrong and do the steps under it. Most of our messages name their own fix, so the wording on screen is your fastest clue; the common ones are quoted here.

A syllabus won't upload or read

Upload a PDF or a DOCX file. A PDF can be up to 25MB and it's the format this flow is built around, so use one where you can. The picker also lists TXT and MD, but the review flow can't read those. When a file gets turned away, the message names it and the reason:

• "Unsupported file type. Supported types: PDF, DOCX, TXT, MD" — export the file as a PDF and upload that. Photos can't be picked at all, so a syllabus that's a set of pictures has to be one PDF first.
• "This looks like a legacy Microsoft Word (.doc) file — renaming it to .docx doesn't convert it." Open it in Word or Google Docs and export a PDF.
• "This file is empty (0 bytes)." Nothing came through with the file. If it lives in Google Drive or OneDrive, open or download it on your device first, then upload it again.
• "This PDF is password-protected. Remove the password and upload it again."
• Word files have a tighter size limit than PDFs, so a big one comes back with "Export it as a PDF (File → Save As → PDF) and upload that instead."
• "This PDF has too many pages to analyze. Try splitting it into parts." We stop at 1,000 pages.

A row marked "Failed" has no retry of its own. Use Add another file for the corrected copy, then the upload button, which counts what's ready — Upload (1) for a single file.

Add Class takes a scanned, image-only PDF and tries to read it, though a PDF we can't make out can still come back failed. The path that won't take one at all is Pull from syllabus on a class you already have, which answers "This PDF has no readable text."

The whole flow is in Upload a syllabus.

A due date or year is wrong

A syllabus line that reads "Feb 19" doesn't say which year, so we work one out from the term dates and the dates around it. We don't mark the ones we guessed, which is why the Assignments step is worth reading before you approve.

To fix one afterwards, open Assignment actions on the assignment and choose Edit. Change Due Date, and Due Time if you need it, then Save Changes. On a class page it's the Edit action on the assignment itself.

Typing a date yourself has a guardrail: the year has to fall between last year and two years from now, or we ask you to "Use a year between" the two we'll take. A half-finished one gets "Enter a complete date with a four-digit year."

A date with no time on it is saved as 11:59 PM, and that includes all-day work arriving from your school's calendar feed.

More on editing in Assignments & due dates.

"Class limit reached" on the free plan

A free account holds two active classes, and the dialog says so: "Your free plan covers 2 classes. Upgrade to Pro for unlimited classes."

Two ways past it. Archive a class you've finished, since archived ones don't count against the two. Or take Upgrade to Pro, and when you're back choose I've upgraded — continue. If that check can't reach us it says "We couldn't refresh your plan. Check your connection and retry."

To leave without creating the rest of your classes, choose Finish later — the extra syllabi stay uploaded and waiting: "2 classes created. 1 syllabus saved for later."

What each plan covers is on Plans.

Your school's assignment feed isn't updating

• Nothing new has come in: open the Linked LMS card and click the refresh icon, labeled Force sync. A message confirms the sync started. We also check on our own every 12 hours.
• The card reads "Sync failed — re-link with a new calendar feed URL": the link can't be edited in place. Generate a fresh feed URL in your school's calendar, click Unlink LMS — you'll be asked whether to delete the classes that came from it; choose Keep Classes unless you actually want them gone — then connect the new URL.
• "This link opens a webpage or sign-in screen, not a calendar feed." You've pasted the page you were looking at. In your school's calendar, find its Export or Subscribe option and copy the iCal or ICS URL from there.
• One class is missing: "Missing a class? Your teacher hasn't posted its assignments yet — they auto-sync within 12 hours once they do."
• Older work never arrived: we skip anything more than 7 days past due.

If everything landed in one class called "Blackboard Assignments", "Moodle Class" or "External Calendar", that's expected — those feeds don't carry course names. Rename the class and it keeps working.

Full setup: Import from your LMS.

Google Calendar is out of sync or disconnected

Start from Sync to Calendar on your dashboard. Once you've synced anything, the Connect step lists your classes under Connected calendars.

• Assignments in Google don't match ours: click Re-sync this calendar on the class, or go through to the last step and click Update all for every class at once. "Update started" means the work has begun, not finished — check Google a little later.
• Leftover or duplicate events, or a class meeting that moved: click Rebuild this calendar from scratch on the class and confirm with Rebuild calendar. That deletes the class's Google calendar and makes a fresh one, including anything you added to it yourself.
• A class reads NEEDS ATTENTION: re-sync it. If the Connect step shows a red box such as "Reconnect Google Calendar" or "Google Calendar isn't enabled", follow its Reconnect Google link and leave the Google Calendar box checked when Google asks.
• A class reads NO CLASS TIMES: the assignments synced but the meeting times couldn't become events, usually because a period starts and ends at the same time. Fix the schedule on the class and re-sync.
• Your edits in Google keep reverting: changes travel one way, so make them in Due Gooder.
• Outlook or Apple Calendar is behind: those subscribe to a link and refresh on their own schedule, hourly at best.

To stop syncing altogether, open Settings → Profile → Connected Accounts and click Unlink beside Google. Everything we made stays in Google exactly as it is.

More in Google Calendar.

Reminders aren't arriving

• Push reminders come from the phone app, and the web has no controls for permission. Check the notification and app-permission settings in the phone app.
• Only assignments that are still to come, aren't finished and have a due date get reminders. Anything in an archived class is left out.
• Your reminder frequency decides how many alerts an assignment gets. Basic has one, 3 hours before the deadline. Moderate alerts you 6 hours, 3 hours and 1 hour before. Extreme alerts you 6 hours and 3 hours before, then every 30 minutes from 2.5 hours down to 30 minutes before. Work you add late only gets the times that haven't already passed, so something due in an hour may have no alert left to send.
• Reminders landing at odd hours are usually the timezone. Check Account timezone as above.
• The daily email only goes out on days you have at least one unfinished assignment due.

Everything we send, and how to change it, is in Notifications & reminders.

A lecture didn't finish processing

Open the recording from Locker. If it says "Something went wrong processing this lecture.", click Try again — we reuse the audio you already uploaded, so there's nothing to record again. If that answers "Couldn't restart processing. Please try again.", click Try again once more.

Before you upload anything a second time, check the file: we take MP3, WAV, M4A or WebM up to 250MB, and live recordings stop at 3 hours.

More in Lectures & transcripts.

Duey says it doesn't have something

For questions about your coursework, Duey uses what's in your account: your classes and assignments, the syllabi attached to them, and the Locker material we've finished reading.

• Told there are no syllabi linked to your classes? Add one through Add Class → Upload Syllabi.
• Told there's no material for a class? Upload it to Locker, wait for the card to read "Indexed", then ask again. A card reading "Couldn't read file" is one Duey can't use.

More in Duey.

You were signed out

"Your session has expired. Taking you to sign in..." on the syllabus review screen, "Your session expired. Refresh or sign in again." in Locker, and "Your session has expired. Refresh the page and sign in again." elsewhere all mean the same thing. Refresh, sign in, and reopen the page you were on.

Files you'd already uploaded are safe. Edits you made in the review wizard without approving them aren't — nothing there is saved until you choose Approve & Finish.

A Locker photo or file failed

• A photo that won't decode is named in the message, followed by "On iPhone, share or export photos as JPEG instead of HEIC, then try again." That's the fix: export it as a JPEG and add it again.
• "Max 30 photos per bundle" — 30 pages is the ceiling for one upload. Put the rest in a second bundle.
• A photo that's "still too large after compression" needs resizing, or exporting at a smaller size, before you add it again.
• "Couldn't read file" on a card means we couldn't read it for search. There's no retry control, so delete that one and add the file again, and get in touch if it keeps happening.

For a scanned PDF, we read up to 50 pages per document and up to 100 pages across any 30 days. A longer one says "This looks like a scanned document, but it's too long to read automatically (over 50 pages). AI study tools may still work with it." At the 30-day limit it says "This looks like a scanned document, but your OCR limit has been reached (100 pages per 30 days). AI study tools may still work with it." A photo bundle turned away at the same limit says "Monthly OCR limit reached." with the pages you've used. Split a long scan, or wait for older pages to roll off.

More in Locker.

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