Review & comment: troubleshooting common problems

Fixes for the most common problems in Review & comment. The tool runs entirely in your browser — your PDF and your notes stay on your device, so everything below happens locally.

"Download annotated" is disabled and the sidebar says "No notes yet"

Cause: the download bakes your annotations into the PDF, so the button stays disabled until there's at least one live note or markup. If you deleted everything, there's nothing to bake.

1. Click anywhere on a page to drop a sticky note, or use Find text in this PDF… plus Highlight or Strike to create markup.
2. Check the sidebar — the note and markup lists show what will be baked.
3. Click Download annotated again.

"This PDF is encrypted and can't be exported"

Cause: most protected PDFs are unlocked on your device automatically when you drop them (you'll see a confirmation toast). A file that still can't be read at export time — typically one that requires an open password — blocks the bake step.

1. Open the Unlock tool and remove the password there. Unlock also runs locally; the file and the password stay in your browser.
2. Drop the unlocked copy back into Review and place your notes again.
3. Download — the bake now succeeds.

Find shows 0 matches, or "No searchable text found — this PDF looks scanned"

Cause: find-and-markup searches the PDF's text layer. A scanned document is just a picture of text, so there's nothing to search. (Zero matches on a normal PDF usually just means a typo or different wording — try a shorter phrase.)

1. Run the file through Make searchable (OCR) — the warning banner links there. OCR also runs on your device.
2. Re-open the OCR'd copy in Review and search again.
3. Sticky notes don't need a text layer — you can click-to-comment on a scan without OCR.

My notes didn't come back when I re-opened the PDF

Cause: notes are stored in this browser only, keyed to the PDF's exact content. They won't appear if anything in that chain changed.

1. Use the same browser on the same device — notes never leave it, so another browser, another machine, or a private/incognito window won't have them.
2. Drop the same file you reviewed before. A re-exported, re-saved, compressed, or otherwise modified copy has different content and gets a fresh, empty note set.
3. If you cleared site data for AttachKit, the notes are gone — browser storage was their only home. The baked copies you downloaded still have everything that was baked.

My solo notes didn't follow me into the review room

Cause: by design, Share for review starts the room fresh — solo notes stay in their own local store on your device.

1. Your solo notes are not lost: go back to /app/review and drop the same PDF to see them.
2. Re-add the comments you need in the room, or bake the solo notes first (Download annotated) and host the room with that …-with-notes.pdf copy so your reviewer sees them on the page.

"Sign in to join this review room" or "Real-time review is a Pro feature"

Cause: the live co-review room requires each participant to sign in, and it's a Pro feature (during the private beta, everything is free). Solo annotation at /app/review stays free with no account.

1. Click Sign in to continue — you'll come back to the room afterwards.
2. If you're already on a paid plan and still see the upgrade screen, reload the page; your tier may be cached.

"Host hasn't started the session yet — wait, then refresh"

Cause: you opened the room link before the host clicked Start session.

1. Ask the host to drop their PDF and click Start session — their screen changes to "Waiting for reviewer…".
2. Refresh the room link, then click Join review.

"Peer went silent — disconnecting", or the header shows "peer offline"

Cause: the room runs over a direct browser-to-browser WebRTC connection with a heartbeat. If the other side closes their tab, sleeps their laptop, or loses network for about 30 seconds, the session disconnects. Some strict office networks also block direct peer connections entirely.

1. Don't close the tab. Notes that already synced are still on your device, and Download with notes still works — bake a copy now if you need one.
2. To continue live, have the host start a fresh room (Share for review again) and send the new link — a dropped room can't be re-joined.
3. On restrictive networks, fall back to async review: annotate solo, Download annotated, and send the baked file.

"Couldn't stash the PDF locally" when clicking Share for review

Cause: the handoff to the room parks the PDF in browser storage (never on a server), and private/incognito windows can block that storage.

1. Retry from a normal (non-private) browser window — no room is created until the stash succeeds.
2. If it keeps failing, fall back to async review: Download annotated and send the baked copy instead.

I can't edit or delete the other person's notes in the room

Cause: by design. Peer notes are read-only and marked with a "peer" tag; only the author can edit or delete a note.

1. Ask the other person to change or delete their note — they'll see the edit sync to you live.

Highlights and strikethroughs don't appear in the room

Cause: find-and-markup is solo-only today; the room syncs sticky notes.

1. Apply highlights or strikethroughs in the solo tool, Download annotated, and host the room with the baked copy, or
2. Use sticky notes to point at the passages during the live session.

The notes in my downloaded PDF can't be hidden or edited

Cause: that's the point of the bake — notes are drawn onto the page as visible ink rather than added as popup annotations, so they show identically in every reader and can't be toggled off or quietly altered.

1. Keep your original file for a clean copy — it's never modified.
2. To change a note, go back to /app/review, drop the original, edit your notes (they're still saved in this browser), and download a fresh copy.

Still stuck?

Contact support and describe what you clicked and what the message said. Don't paste anything confidential from the document — your file never reaches us, so a description is what helps.