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Deep Research involves multiple steps — plan generation, web crawling, synthesis, and report delivery — so there are more places where something can go wrong compared to a standard search. The sections below cover the most common issues and how to resolve them.
The Deep Research pill is grayed out and clicking it does nothing, or starting a session fails immediately.Check your daily limit first.
  • Free plan: 1 Deep Research session per day
  • Go to Settings → Usage to see your current usage and when the limit resets (midnight UTC)
  • Upgrade to Pro or higher for more sessions per day
Check for an already-active session.
  • Only one Deep Research session can run at a time per account
  • If a session is currently running in another chat tab, wait for it to complete before starting a new one
  • If you are unsure whether a session is running, check Settings → Usage for active sessions
Check the active model.
  • Some models in ZeroTwo do not support tool use
  • Switch to a supported model (Claude Sonnet, GPT-4o, or Gemini) and try again
The progress indicator has shown no change for an unusually long time.Normal behavior first: Deep Research can take 2–10 minutes. Some phases — particularly the crawl phase for complex topics — may appear idle in the progress indicator while work is happening server-side. If it has been fewer than 10 minutes, wait it out.If it has been more than 15 minutes with no change: This indicates a server-side issue. Here is what to do:
  1. Wait 5 more minutes — some longer research plans genuinely take more time
  2. If still stuck, open a new chat at /c
  3. Retry your research request with the same (or refined) prompt
  4. The stuck session’s credit may have been consumed — check Settings → Usage before retrying
Refreshing the page or closing the tab does not cancel a stuck session — it continues running server-side. If the session eventually completes, the report will appear in the original chat thread.
You see a message indicating your daily Deep Research limit has been reached.Why this happens:
  • Free plan: 1 Deep Research session per day
  • Pro and higher plans have more sessions, but they are not unlimited on all tiers
What to do:
  • Wait for the reset: Daily limits reset at midnight UTC. Check Settings → Usage for the exact time remaining
  • Upgrade your plan: Pro, Pro 2x, Plus Ultra, and Business plans all offer higher Deep Research limits — compare at zerotwo.ai/pricing
  • Use Web Search as a stopgap: For time-sensitive needs that cannot wait, Web Search with a well-crafted prompt can produce useful results for narrowly scoped questions
If you believe your limit counter is incorrect (e.g., a failed or stuck session counted against your quota), contact support from Settings → Help & Support and include the chat thread link.
The delivered report does not cover topics that were important to your research goal, or covers them only superficially.Why this happens:
  • The research plan was not specific enough about required topics, so ZeroTwo allocated crawl effort elsewhere
  • The topic has limited publicly available source material
  • The plan was approved before all required subtopics were specified
What to do:
  • Use follow-up prompts in the same chat: “Expand the [section name] section with more detail on [specific subtopic]” — ZeroTwo can do targeted additional research on a section without starting a full new session
  • Start a focused new session specifically on the missing topic — sometimes a narrow, focused research session produces better coverage than a broad one
  • Next time, specify every subtopic before approving: “Before you start, I need to confirm the plan covers: (1) X, (2) Y, and (3) Z.”
Do not just approve the first research plan draft. Use the review step to add specific sub-questions for each section before proceeding — this single step dramatically improves coverage.
The report’s Sources list shows many entries from the same website, suggesting the research was not diverse.Why this happens:
  • A single dominant source on the topic (e.g., a major news outlet or authoritative site) may have dominated search results
  • A very narrow topic may genuinely have limited source diversity on the public web
  • No explicit instruction to diversify sources was given during the plan step
What to do:
  • In the plan review step, add: “Use diverse sources — avoid relying on any single domain. Include at least 5 different domains.”
  • Specify the types of sources you want: “Include academic papers, news coverage, industry analyst reports, and official company sources”
  • If you have already received the report, ask ZeroTwo: “The sources feel narrow — can you supplement this with additional sources from different domains for the [section] section?”
The report feels shallow, surface-level, or does not go beyond information you could have found in a few minutes of searching yourself.Why this happens:
  • The initial research prompt was too vague or broad, causing ZeroTwo to produce shallow coverage across too many angles
  • No scope constraints were provided (timeframe, geography, audience)
  • The topic is very well-covered on the web, causing ZeroTwo to surface common-knowledge content rather than finding deeper insights
For future sessions — write a stronger prompt:
  • Specify a timeframe: “as of 2024–2025,” “in the last 6 months”
  • Define the audience and use case: “for a VC investor evaluating a Series A,” “for an enterprise procurement team”
  • Set a quality bar: “I want analysis and synthesis, not just a summary of what is publicly known”
  • Ask for specific outputs: “Include a comparison table,” “provide a SWOT analysis,” “cite specific statistics”
For the current report — use follow-up prompts:
  • “This feels too surface-level. Go deeper on [section] with more specific data and analysis.”
  • “Add more concrete examples, statistics, and named sources to [section].”
  • “What are the non-obvious or counterintuitive findings from your research on this topic?”
The report was delivered but you are unable to click into the document and make edits.What to do:
  1. Wait a moment for the Canvas document to fully render — large reports take a second to load completely
  2. Click directly on a paragraph of body text (not a heading) to enter edit mode
  3. If still not editable, look for an Edit button or pencil icon in the Canvas toolbar at the top of the document
  4. Try opening the chat in a new browser tab or temporarily disabling browser extensions that may interfere with the Canvas editor
  5. As a workaround, ask ZeroTwo to make edits via the chat: “Please edit the Executive Summary to…”
Canvas documents are editable by default when delivered from Deep Research. If you received a share link from someone else, you may be in read-only mode — request edit access from the person who shared it.
You received a completion notification but cannot find the report.What to do:
  • Scroll up in the chat thread — the report was delivered as a Canvas document message in the conversation and may be above your current scroll position
  • Check whether the Canvas panel is open on the right side of the screen — it may have loaded there without a visible message
  • Try refreshing the page; the Canvas document should reappear
  • If the chat thread looks empty or only shows partial content, the report may still be rendering — wait 30 seconds and refresh

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Still having issues?

If none of the above resolves your problem:
  • Try starting a new chat thread and retrying your research from scratch
  • Check zerotwo.ai/status for any active service incidents affecting Deep Research
  • Contact support from Settings → Help & Support and include the URL of the affected chat thread so the team can investigate