Troubleshooting & limits
The most common questions, and the real usage caps for every plan — the same numbers the server enforces.
Why didn't the answer cite anything?
Before an answer leaves the server, every claimed citation is checked against the passages actually retrieved from your document. If a quote can't be matched to the source, the citation is dropped rather than invented — so an uncited sentence means Sidenote couldn't prove that sentence against the text, not that it forgot the footnote.
Common causes, roughly in order:
- The information isn't in the ingested text — it was in an image, a chart, a comment thread, or a part of the page that didn't extract.
- The claim synthesises across many passages, so no single quote supports it. Asking a narrower question usually brings the chips back.
- The page changed since you ingested it. Sidenote flags this when it can — re-ingest to pick up the current content.
Scanned PDFs and OCR
A scanned or image-only PDF has no text layer, so ordinary tools can't read it. Sidenote runs optical character recognition (OCR) on image-only pages during ingest, then summarises, chats and cites over the recognised text — pages that already have real text are read directly and skip OCR. Recognition quality tracks scan quality: a crisp scan reads nearly perfectly, while a skewed photocopy of a fax may come through with errors, which can also affect how precisely citations land on the page.
Sidenote says it's paused on this site
You (or someone at your keyboard) paused Sidenote on that site. Pausing silences what Sidenote volunteers on a host: page detection, the floating selection pill, and the toolbar badge. Explicit actions — clicking a citation, requesting a selection from the sidebar — keep working. To resume, open the sidebar's account menu and choose Resume on <site> (the same place you pause).
What does the ✓ badge on the toolbar icon mean?
An amber ✓ on the Sidenote toolbar icon means the page you're on is already in your library — you can open the sidebar and ask it questions without re-ingesting. No badge means the page isn't in your library yet (or the site is paused). The badge is a hint refreshed in the background, so it can lag a few seconds after you add or delete a document.
Usage limits by plan
These are the same constants the server enforces, so if you've hit a cap mid-month this table is why. Monthly caps reset with your billing month; the dashboard's usage page shows where you stand.
| Per month | Free | Trial* | Pro | Pro+ | Pro Max |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Documents | 3 | 3 | 25 | 50 | 250 |
| Summaries | 10 | 20 | 75 | 150 | 750 |
| Explanations | 10 | 10 | 70 | 140 | 700 |
| Glossary builds | 3 | 3 | 15 | 30 | 150 |
| Chat turns | — | 10 | 35 | 50 | 250 |
| Collection size (docs) | — | 3 | 5 | 10 | 25 |
| Max upload size | 5 MB | 10 MB | 20 MB | 40 MB | 75 MB |
*Trial caps are totals for the 7-day trial, not monthly allowances. Chat and Collections are paid features, so the free tier shows “—”. Very long documents are also capped by extracted-text length per plan, independent of file size.
Need more headroom? Compare plans on the pricing page.
Something else?
Contact us or email support@getsidenote.app with your account email and the document or page you were working with.