Troubleshooting

Common issues and how to resolve them.

"Verification email never arrived"

Check your spam/junk folder.
Wait 1–2 minutes — email delivery can be slightly delayed.
From the login page, click Resend verification email (allowed 3 times per 15 minutes).
Add noreply@certdirectory.io to your contacts.
Some corporate email systems block external senders. Try a personal email if it's available.

"Email verification link expired"

Verification links are valid for a limited time. Sign in (you'll get a EMAIL_NOT_VERIFIED error), then use Resend verification email from the login screen — that sends a fresh link.

"I get `EMAIL_NOT_VERIFIED` when signing in"

Click the verification link in your email first. If the email isn't there, see above.

Issuing credentials

"Signing keys not generated"

Open the organization detail page, find the Signing keys section, and click Generate signing keys. You must be the Owner. Keys can only be generated once.

"Organization not approved"

You can fully set up your organization while in pending_review, but issuance is blocked. Wait for approval (typically one business day). If your organization was rejected, you'll get an email with the reason — update the org and resubmit.

The recipient has an active, non-expiring credential of the same badge. Issuing again would create a duplicate. To proceed:

Revoke the existing credential first (Revoking Credentials).
Then issue the new one — it'll be linked as a renewal of the revoked credential.

Or, if you actually want to renew with a different cadence: change the badge to have expiresInDays, so future credentials are time-bound.

"Quota exceeded"

You've reached your monthly recipient quota. Options:

Wait until the 1st of the next month for the quota to reset.
Upgrade your plan — Professional has the same Free quota; Enterprise has 5,000.
Note that re-issuing to recipients you've already issued to this month doesn't count again — only new emails do.

Bulk issuance

"Bulk issuance is only available on paid plans"

Upgrade to Professional or Enterprise. Free-tier organizations can validate a CSV but cannot submit it.

"Invalid CSV"

Common causes:

Missing or misnamed header row. The required headers are name and email (case-insensitive).
Wrong file format. Must be .csv (no .xlsx, .tsv, etc.).
File over 1 MB. Split into smaller batches.
BOM character at the start of the file (some Excel exports). Re-save as UTF-8 from a plain text editor or csv library.

"All my rows show as 'Active (non-expiring)'"

This means every recipient already has an active, non-expiring credential of this badge. Either:

The badge has no expiresInDays. Set one if recurring issuance makes sense.
These recipients genuinely already have the credential — bulk-issuing again is unnecessary.

"Bulk job is stuck on `processing`"

Bulk jobs are processed by background workers. If a job stays processing for more than ~10 minutes for under 1,000 recipients, contact support with the job ID.

Verification

"Credential not found" (404)

Double-check the URL — credential IDs look like CRD-ZBUYQMTA (8 alphanumeric chars after CRD-).
The credential may have been deleted (rare; only happens if the issuing organization was removed entirely).

"Private credential" (403)

The credential exists but is marked private. Only the signed-in recipient can view it. If you're the issuer, sign in with the issuing org and retrieve from your credentials list.

"Signature invalid" / red signature check on verification page

This is rare and indicates the credential's signature doesn't match the issuer's published public key. Causes:

Tampered credential data (someone modified the JSON after issuance).
The issuer rotated keys (we don't currently support rotation in the UI).
A bug — please report it.

Verification page is slow to load

Common causes:

Cold start after a period of low traffic — try again, it should be fast on subsequent loads.
Rate limit hit — wait a minute and reload.

Domain verification

"TXT record not found"

Wait 5–10 minutes after adding the record. DNS propagation can take time.
Verify with a third-party DNS tool: dig TXT _certdirectory.example.com or whatsmydns.net.
Confirm the value matches the token shown in the UI exactly. Trailing whitespace or quotation marks added by the DNS provider can cause mismatches.

"Domain verification feature unavailable"

You're on the Free plan. Upgrade to Professional to enable domain verification.

"Website URL is required"

Set your organization's website on the org detail page first, then start verification.

API

"401 Unauthorized" on every request

Check the Authorization: Bearer <key> header is set correctly.
Confirm the key hasn't been revoked.
If you regenerated the key, make sure your code uses the new value.

"403 Forbidden" with "API access requires Professional plan"

The organization the API key belongs to is on Free. Upgrade to Professional or higher.

"429 Too Many Requests"

Check the X-RateLimit-Reset header for when the window resets.
Implement exponential backoff (see Rate Limits).
For sustained high throughput, contact us about raising your per-key limit.

"409 Conflict" when issuing

The recipient has an active, non-expiring credential of the same badge. Revoke it first, or issue from a different badge. See Renewing Credentials.

Billing

"I upgraded but the new features aren't showing"

Refresh the page. Plan changes take effect within seconds, but the UI state caches briefly.
Sign out and back in.
If you've waited more than a minute, check Stripe — the subscription should be active. If it isn't, the payment might have failed; check email and your card.

"Invoice / receipt not received"

All invoices come from Stripe. Open Manage Billing → Invoice history in the Stripe Customer Portal to download. If invoices aren't there, the most recent payment may have failed.

"Wrong amount charged"

Pricing in Stripe and pricing displayed in-app should match. If they don't, contact us.

Still stuck?

Check the FAQ.
Use Contact us in the main app.
Open an issue on the docs repo for documentation problems.