Troubleshooting & FAQ¶

Short answers to the problems users hit most often. If your question isn't here, check the relevant section of the guide or ask your Specivo administrator.

I can't sign in / I forgot my password¶

First confirm you're using the right username and the correct address for your instance. If you've forgotten your password, use the Forgot password link on the sign-in page to receive a reset email — this requires the operator to have configured outbound email (SMTP).

If no reset email arrives, or password reset isn't set up, ask your administrator to reset your password for you. Repeated failed attempts may temporarily lock you out; wait a moment and try again.

Search returns nothing¶

Specivo has two search modes. Keyword search works out of the box and matches text in issues, comments, wiki pages, and attachment descriptions. Semantic search (finding results by meaning) needs an on-device embedding model that the operator downloads and an index that is built afterward.

If semantic results are empty, the model probably hasn't been fetched and the existing content hasn't been indexed yet. Keyword search still works in the meantime. To enable semantic search, the operator runs the model download (make download-model) and a backfill to index existing content. See Finding issues.

An AI agent gets a permission error¶

When a tool call through the MCP server fails with a permission error, check two things:

• The key's user has a role on the project. Every write enforces the calling user's project permission. If the API key belongs to a user (often a service account) with no membership on that project, add them with an appropriate role — typically Agent or Developer.
• The key has the mcp scope. A key without the mcp scope can't use the MCP server at all. Create a new key with the mcp scope under Your profile → API keys. See API keys.

A file upload was rejected¶

Specivo has no built-in file-type restriction, so a rejected upload is almost always a size limit. The maximum upload size is set by the operator (the web server's client_max_body_size). Ask your administrator what the limit is, or split the file. See Attachments.

Registration is closed¶

If the sign-up page is unavailable or rejects new accounts, the instance is running in a closed registration mode — self-service sign-up is turned off. Ask an administrator to create an account for you or send you an invite.