Search Troubleshooting
Search pill is grayed out
Search pill is grayed out
If the Search tool pill in the prompt bar appears grayed out or unclickable:Most likely cause: daily search quota reached.Free plan accounts get 1 web search per day. Once that’s used, the search pill becomes inactive until the reset.To check your usage:
- Go to Settings → Account
- Look for your daily usage statistics
- If search shows 1/1, you’ve used your daily allocation
- You’re not logged in (guest mode has no search access)
- There’s a temporary service issue — try refreshing the page
No sources appearing in the Sources panel
No sources appearing in the Sources panel
If ZeroTwo responds but the Sources panel is empty or doesn’t appear:The model answered from training data, not the web. This happens when:
- The Search pill was not active (highlighted) when you sent your message
- The model determined it could answer accurately from its training data and didn’t trigger a web search
- Your question was phrased in a way that the model interpreted as conversational rather than research-oriented
- Make sure the Search pill is highlighted/active before sending
- Add explicit search intent to your prompt: “Search the web for…”, “Find recent information about…”, “Look up current…”
- For real-time data (stock prices, news, live events), the model is more likely to trigger a search automatically
Search results are outdated
Search results are outdated
Web search results are generally recent, but there can be latency between when content is published and when it’s indexed and crawled:
- Check the source URLs directly. Click through to the sources in the Sources panel to verify the publication date of the content.
- Specify recency in your prompt. Try phrases like: “from the last 24 hours”, “published this week”, “latest news about…”
- Try a different Focus Mode. The “News” focus mode prioritizes recently published news articles. Switch to it for time-sensitive queries.
- Use a Perplexity model. Perplexity’s Sonar models are designed to always search the web and typically surface very recent results. Switch to Sonar or Sonar Pro in the Model Picker.
Web crawls are inherently delayed. For information published within the last few hours, ZeroTwo (and most AI search tools) may not have indexed it yet. For breaking news, check a news site directly.
Search returning results in the wrong language
Search returning results in the wrong language
By default, ZeroTwo’s web search returns results in your interface language setting. If results are appearing in an unexpected language:
- Specify the language in your prompt: “Search in English for…”, “Busca en español…”, “search for X and respond in French”
- Change your language setting: Go to Settings → Personalization → Language and select your preferred language. This affects both the interface and search result language preferences.
- Note: Some topics naturally have more content in certain languages. If you’re searching for region-specific content, results may skew toward that region’s language regardless of your setting.
Personal focus mode returning no results
Personal focus mode returning no results
The Personal focus mode searches your connected data sources (Google Drive, Gmail, Notion, etc.) rather than the public web. If it returns nothing:
- Ensure you have connected apps. Personal mode requires at least one data connector. Go to Settings → Connectors and connect an app (Google Drive, Gmail, Notion, etc.).
- Check connector authorization. If a connector shows as disconnected or has an error, reconnect it: Settings → Connectors → find the app → Reconnect.
- Search for content you know exists. Test with a specific file name or email subject that you know is in your connected data to confirm search is working.
- Allow indexing time. After connecting a new data source, it may take a few minutes for content to be indexed and available for search.
Sources seem unreliable or low quality
Sources seem unreliable or low quality
If search results consistently return low-quality, spammy, or irrelevant sources:
- Switch Focus Mode. Each focus mode filters results differently:
- Research — prioritizes academic papers, journals, and authoritative sources
- News — prioritizes reputable news publications
- PDF — returns PDF documents (often academic or official)
- Company — business/company information
- GitHub — code repositories and technical documentation
- Be explicit about quality in your prompt. Add: “use reputable sources”, “cite academic papers”, “from authoritative sources only”
- Verify important information. Always click through to the source URL to verify the content before relying on it. AI summarization of web content can introduce errors.
Auto-search using up my daily quota unexpectedly
Auto-search using up my daily quota unexpectedly
ZeroTwo has an auto-search feature that can automatically trigger a web search when the model determines your question would benefit from current information. On the Free plan with only 1 search/day, this can consume your quota unexpectedly.To disable auto-search:
- Go to Settings → Preferences → Auto-search
- Toggle it to Off
- Add to your prompt: “don’t search the web”, “answer from your training data only”, “no web search”
- Or simply leave the Search pill deactivated (not highlighted)
Search Quick Reference
| Issue | Solution |
|---|---|
| Search pill grayed out | Daily quota reached — wait for midnight UTC reset or upgrade |
| No sources in panel | Activate Search pill and use explicit search prompts |
| Outdated results | Add recency to prompt; use News focus mode or Perplexity models |
| Wrong language results | Specify language in prompt or update language setting |
| Personal mode no results | Connect apps in Settings → Connectors |
| Low quality sources | Switch focus mode; specify quality requirements in prompt |
| Auto-search depleting quota | Disable in Settings → Preferences → Auto-search |