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Real questions inspectors asked our support team, with the answers. Tap a question to open it; each one has its own link you can share.

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Messages and automations

Usually the automations aren’t set up yet, or they were added after the inspection was booked. Hive only sends what your automations tell it to send.
  1. Open the inspection and click Automations under Quick Actions to see what is queued for that job.
  2. If nothing is there, import the ready-made automations from Browse on the Automations page. For a job that was already booked, click Compose Email on the inspection’s automation page to send it now.
If only one contact gets nothing, open their contact page. Unsubscribed from automated emails means automations to them are cancelled. Emails you send yourself with Compose Email still go through.See Do I have to set up automations? and Why didn’t my automation send?
Sent means Hive handed the message to the email or text provider. Open the inspection, click Automations under Quick Actions and read the line under the message:
  • Bounced — invalid address or Bounced — temporary issue: the client’s mail server turned it away. Fix the email on the inspection and click Send Again.
  • Marked as spam: the client or their email provider flagged it as spam.
  • Opened with a time: it reached the inbox and was opened.
  • Not opened yet: no open recorded. Some email apps hide opens, so this doesn’t prove it wasn’t received.
Check the address under To for typos. A misspelled address that happens to be a real mailbox doesn’t bounce. Click View Sent to see exactly what went out. Ask the client to check spam, junk and promotions, and to search for your company name. Sending from your own verified domain helps emails land in the inbox. See Why are my emails going to spam?For texts, Sent means the carrier accepted it. Some phones filter texts from unknown numbers into a separate folder. If the client once replied STOP, carriers block further texts to that number, and new texts show Failed. Email them instead.To get them their report or agreement right away, send them reports.hiveinspect.com and have them sign in with the email on the inspection.
Without a dedicated phone number, automated texts come from a shared Hive number, and replies don’t reach you. Put your own phone number in your text messages so clients can call or text you directly. See Which number do my texts come from?With a dedicated number, replies show in Messages, and Hive also sends them to the forwarding phone and email you set up. If a reply is missing:
  1. Check when the text was sent. Texts sent before your number was approved went out from the shared number, so replies to them don’t reach you.
  2. Check the forwarding phone and email you gave for your dedicated number.
  3. If the client answered an email rather than a text, the reply goes to your company email inbox, not to Messages.
See Tracking inbound responses.
Open the inspection and click Automations under Quick Actions. Every email and text for that job is listed with its status: Waiting, Scheduled, Sent, Failed or Cancelled. Sent emails also show whether they were opened or bounced, and View Sent shows exactly what the recipient got. When a message failed or was cancelled, the reason shows under it as Error.See Automation tracking and How do I see which emails and texts were sent?
Use the test button on the automation.
  1. On the Automations page, open the automation. Save it first if it’s new.
  2. Click Test Email or Test SMS at the top.
  3. Enter your own email address or phone number, and pick an inspection under Select Inspection. Placeholders fill in with that inspection’s details.
  4. Click Send Test Email or Send Test SMS and check how it looks.
The test goes only to you. See Test SMS and email messages.

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Scheduling and bookings

It’s usually hidden by a filter. The Inspections page remembers your filters in each browser.
  1. Click Clear Filters, or set the date filter to All dates.
  2. Search for the address in the search bar at the top of the dashboard.
  3. For drafts, click Show all Drafts. Drafts often have no date yet.
  4. To see the newest first, sort by Created date.
Canceled inspections stay in the list under the Canceled status. A deleted inspection no longer appears. If you deleted one by mistake, ask in the chat bubble in your dashboard and include the property address.
Reconnect and allow every permission. Go to Org Settings → Scheduling, click Disconnect, connect again and check every box when Google asks. For inspections booked before you connected, open the inspection and click Regenerate calendar event.See How do I connect my Google Calendar?
The online scheduler offers the start times in your Weekly Availability Schedule and hides times it knows are taken. A booking lands on a busy time when Hive couldn’t see that you were busy. Check these:
  • Google events: with the Google Calendar engine, only busy events on your main Google calendar block time. Events marked Free and events on other calendars don’t. With the Hive Calendar engine, Google events never block, so add time off in Hive. See Do my Google events block my scheduler?
  • Drafts and waiting bookings: by default they don’t hold their time, so two online bookings can both be waiting for the same slot. Turn on the draft and waiting calendar settings. See Do drafts and waiting bookings block my calendar?
  • Block calendar: an inspection with its Block calendar switch off doesn’t hold its time.
  • Time zone: a wrong Timezone in Org Settings → Scheduling shifts every time. See How do I change my time zone?
  • Your availability: if the time is in your Weekly Availability Schedule, clients can book it. Remove start times you don’t want to offer.
Every online booking arrives as Waiting, and your confirmation emails and texts go out only after you confirm it. Change the time before you confirm. See Do online bookings need my approval?
Hive only offers a start time when the whole inspection fits. Check:
  1. The day has start times. In Profile Settings, under Weekly Availability Schedule, that day needs at least one start time.
  2. The inspection ends before your day does. A start time is skipped if it plus the inspection’s length runs past the end of your General Business Hours. Extend your business hours, or check the durations in Business Tools → Services and Fees.
  3. Nothing else is in the way. Other inspections plus Buffer Between Inspections, events that block your calendar and, with the Google Calendar engine, busy Google events all remove times.
  4. The notice period. Scheduling Restriction in Org Settings → Scheduling hides times that are too soon.
On a team, once any inspector has a weekly availability schedule, inspectors without one show no times online. Click Team Settings in Profile Settings to set each person’s times. When you book from your own dashboard you can pick any time. That is by design.See Where do I set the times clients can book online?
First check the scheduler itself. Go to Business Tools → Widget Integration and click Preview Scheduling Widget.
  • The preview works: the problem is on your website. Paste the whole embed code, from <iframe to </iframe>, into an HTML, embed or custom code block. A normal text block shows the code as text or strips it out. Some website builders only show embeds on the published site, so publish and check the live page. If the widget looks cut off, make the embed block taller.
  • The preview says Online Scheduling Temporarily Unavailable: your account can’t take new inspections right now, usually because the free trial reports are used up or the subscription has ended. See I used up my free trial reports.
If your website won’t accept the embed code, add a button that opens the scheduler link instead. Click Copy Link under the widget’s QR code. See Add the widget to your website.

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Reports, PDFs and photos

Pull down to refresh the tag list in the app. The app keeps location tags on the phone so they work offline, and it doesn’t fetch new ones by itself.
  1. Edit the list on the web in Org Settings → Report Writing → Location Tags, or in the app under My Profile → Location Tags.
  2. In a report, open the location tag list and pull down until you see the spinner.
Location tags are company-wide, not per template. Tags you edit under My Profile → Location Tags show up right away on that phone. Other phones need the pull-down refresh.
Your changes are still on your phone. Keep the app open, get good signal and sync again.
  • Saved Locally: you’re offline. Your changes sync when you reconnect.
  • Sync Failed: usually a weak connection. Move to good Wi-Fi or cell signal, wait a moment and tap Sync again. Many photos or long videos on a slow connection take a while, so let it finish.
  • Report Mismatch: go back out of the report, open it again and sync.
  • Report Removed: the report was removed from the inspection on the web. Ask our team before you do anything else.
Don’t log out, delete the app or clear its data while the report shows Sync. Anything not yet synced would be lost. If it still won’t sync, ask in the chat bubble in your dashboard, or tap My Profile → Contact Support in the app, and include the inspection address.See How often does the app sync?
Open the report in the Web Editor, click PDF at the top right and click View PDF. If the report changed, Hive builds a new PDF first. That usually takes under a minute, longer for large reports. You can close the window while it works.
  • If it says PDF generation failed, click Retry. If it fails again, ask in the chat bubble in your dashboard with the property address.
  • If you only changed the cover photo, PDF settings or client details, click Regenerate to rebuild a PDF that already looks current.
Missing photos are usually one of these:
  1. The phone hasn’t finished uploading. Wait until the report shows Synced in the app, then click View PDF again.
  2. The photo is on a comment that isn’t checked. Unchecked comments and their photos don’t appear in the report or the PDF.
  3. You’re looking at an old copy. Refreshing a PDF tab you already had open shows the old file. Open it again from PDF.
Videos appear in the PDF as a preview image that links to the video. See Why didn’t my PDF update?
Check that every phone finished and that you’re looking at the latest copy:
  1. The app shows Synced. The report’s button stays on Sync until every photo, including CYA photos, has uploaded.
  2. The browser is up to date. Refresh the Web Editor or the preview after the phone syncs.
  3. Teammates synced too. If someone else took the photos, their phone has to sync. See Why don’t I see my teammate’s changes?
  4. The comment is checked. Photos on an unchecked comment don’t show in the report.
  5. They aren’t CYA photos. CYA photos never go in the report. Find them under CYA in the Web Editor. See What are CYA photos?
If photos are still missing, keep the app on the phone. Don’t delete it, log out or clear its data. Ask in the chat bubble in your dashboard with the inspection address and the section, and our team can check what reached Hive.
Look at the button at the top right of the report. Green Synced means everything, photos included, is saved to Hive. Blue Sync means changes are still on the phone. Tap it and wait for Synced.With no signal, the app keeps working and saves your changes on the phone until you’re back online. See Check sync status and How often does the app sync?
The Web Editor saves on its own a few seconds after you stop typing, and at least every 30 seconds while you keep going. The Save button at the top right turns yellow while you have unsaved changes and goes grey once they’re saved. Click it to save right away.
  • Couldn’t save — the report keeps changing on the server: a phone or another tab is saving the same report at the same time. Your edits stay in this tab. Hive tries again in 30 seconds, or click Save. If the app is syncing this report, let it finish first.
  • Failed to save inspection data: usually a dropped connection. Check your internet and click Save again.
Don’t close or refresh the tab while Save is yellow. Your browser warns you, because unsaved edits would be lost. If saving keeps failing, copy any long text you wrote somewhere safe and ask in the chat bubble in your dashboard with the property address.See Can I work on the same report from the web and my phone?
Turn ratings off in that template. Open the template and switch off Ratings in the template’s overview. The ratings grid then disappears from the mobile app, the Web Editor and the report.Each report keeps the setting it was created with, so this applies to reports you start afterwards. For a report you already started, ask in the chat bubble in your dashboard. See How do I turn ratings on or off? and Disable ratings.

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Clients and the portal

Send them the client portal, reports.hiveinspect.com. They sign in with the email on the inspection and find the agreement, invoice and reports in one place. A different email shows no inspection.If they still can’t see where to sign, ask them to try another browser, such as Chrome or Safari, or a private window. To resend the email, open the inspection, click Automations under Quick Actions and click Send Again. To sign in person, open the inspection in the mobile app, tap Agreements and hand them your phone or tablet.See How does my client get the agreement to sign?
A report opens only when it’s published, the invoice is paid and every agreement is signed. To let one client in early:
  1. Open the inspection and click Manual Lock Override for Reports under Quick Actions.
  2. Choose Unlock Override to open it now, or Unlock with Agreement to still require a signature.
  3. Click Apply Override.
The override applies to that inspection only. If the report is unlocked and they still can’t get in, the email they typed probably doesn’t match the contact on the inspection.See Manual override for reports, Can my client open the report before they pay and sign? and My client can’t sign in.
  1. In Business Tools → Payments, check that Stripe is connected and at least one payment method is on, such as Accept credit / debit cards.
  2. Ask the client to sign in at reports.hiveinspect.com with the email on the inspection and click Make Payment.
  3. If the payment form asks for a code sent to a phone they no longer use, that’s Stripe’s saved-payment feature, Link. They can choose to pay without Link and type the card in.
  4. If they’re still stuck, open the inspection and click Record Payment under Fees and Payments. Click Get Payment via CC, ACH, etc. to enter their card yourself, or copy the payment link there and text it to them.
If they paid by ACH, the report can stay locked until the transfer settles, depending on Mark payment as paid only when ACH settles in Business Tools → Payments. See How do I connect Stripe?
First check that it opens for you. Open the report in the Web Editor, click PDF and click View PDF. If it’s still generating, ask your client to try again in a few minutes. If it says the generation failed, click Retry.If it opens for you but not for them, a company firewall or browser setting may be blocking it. Ask them to try another browser or device, or download the PDF and email it yourself. If it won’t generate at all, ask in the chat bubble in your dashboard with the property address.See How do my clients and agents download the PDF?

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Still stuck?

Ask in the chat bubbleOpen your dashboard and use the chat bubble. Our team answers seven days a weekAsk the inspector communityOther inspectors answer in the Facebook group
Last modified on October 19, 2026