When a report will not publish or a client cannot open it
Documentation
Two problems that arrive as one complaint. Publishing refuses, or publishing worked and the reader is stuck.
Publishing refuses
The readiness check looks at defect comments you have included, and nothing else. For each one it asks three questions:
| It refuses on | Fix |
|---|---|
A placeholder still in the text — {{location}} and the like |
Fill it in, or remove the comment. Always blocking, in every workspace |
| No location on the defect | Add one — blocking only where your workspace requires location |
| No trade on the defect | Set it — blocking only where your workspace requires trade |
Each blocking entry names its section, its item and the comment, so the fix is one click rather than a search.
What your workspace does not require still appears, as a warning. The report will publish; you were told. Whether location and trade are required at all is a setting — Inspection types and templates.
Why placeholders are never merely warned about: an unfilled placeholder does not read to a client as a mistake, it reads as a report written by a machine that nobody checked.
Other reasons a publish can fail
- You do not have the permission. Publishing needs
publish— owners, managers and inspectors have it by default; agents never do. - The snapshot is too large. Every publish stores a complete copy of the inspection, capped at 1 MB. A report that exceeds it fails rather than storing something partial. In practice this means an unusually large amount of text — photos are not part of that measurement.
A client cannot open their report
Four different situations, and they look identical from the client's side.
The link expired
Report links carry a lifetime — two years by default. An expired link says so, and the client can ask for a new one. Sending again issues a fresh link.
The link was revoked
Access can be withdrawn for one person, deliberately. A new link does not change that until you restore access. The state is on each person's row on the inspection — not sent, active, expired, revoked — which is the fastest place to tell these two apart.
A gate is holding it
If the workspace requires a signed agreement or payment first, the client does not get an error — they get a page saying what is outstanding, with the action that clears it.
If the gate no longer applies, an owner or manager can unlock that one inspection without turning the policy off for everyone.
They never got the link at all
Different problem entirely, and it belongs to When a message does not arrive. Check the delivery record first: "not sent" and "sent but not opened" are answered on the same card, and confusing them sends you looking in the wrong place.
"The report changed after I sent it"
That is expected, and worth knowing precisely: the web report shows the inspection as it now stands. Publishing again writes a new version, and the client is told what changed if you filled in the amendment note.
What is frozen is the evidence — each published version keeps its own signed, verifiable copy, addressed by its own token. A PDF a client downloaded in March still verifies as what it was in March. The full picture is in Publishing a report.
See also: When signing or payment fails.