Most generation failures are temporary, and retrying works. Select Retry and let it run again. If it fails a second time, the usual cause is the size of the build or a product Atlas cannot read properly, and the fix is to build fewer products at once or swap the problem product for one from your Shopify catalog.
In this article:
Step 1: Retry
Generation failed appears with a Retry button. Use it.
The text under Generation failed says what stopped the build. Some messages name the cause:
Message | What to do |
| Atlas could not read the product page at the site the product link points to, aliexpress.com in this example. Retry once. If it fails again, go back and choose a different product, or one from your Shopify catalog. |
| A retry cannot fix this. Free up templates first, as described in the template limit section below. |
| No page in the build could be created. Retry once, then work through the steps below. |
Generation involves several external services in sequence, and any one of them being briefly slow can end the run. A straight retry succeeds more often than not, and it costs you nothing: a failed generation does not count towards your published pages allowance, because nothing was published.
Step 2: Reduce the build
If you see Generation timed out. Please try again., the build was too large to finish in the available time.
Split it. A build of twenty products is far more likely to time out than four builds of five. Smaller builds also fail more cheaply, since you lose less work when one does.
💡 Five products per build is a good working maximum, even though Atlas accepts twenty. It finishes faster, fails less, and lets you check the first few pages before committing to the rest.
Step 3: Check your products
A product Atlas cannot read properly can take down the whole build.
If the message names a site, as in
Couldn't fetch the product from aliexpress.com. Try again, or go back and choose a different product., the product from that site is the cause. Otherwise suspect the products you added by URL rather than from your catalog.Remove that product and build the rest. If the build succeeds, you have found it.
For the problem product, add it to your Shopify catalog manually and build from your catalog rather than from the URL.
Products behind a login, on sites that block automated readers, or on pages that are mostly images with little text are the usual offenders. See Why couldn't Atlas import my product URL?
If your theme has reached the template limit
Shopify allows at most 1,000 templates in one theme. When you build from a template in your own Shopify theme, Atlas adds a new template to that theme, so a full theme rejects the build with Your theme has reached Shopify's 1,000-template limit. Delete templates you no longer use from this theme, then try again.
In Shopify, go to Online Store > Themes, open the menu on the theme you build into, and select Edit code.
In the Templates folder, delete templates you no longer use.
Return to Atlas and select
Retry.
⚠️ Check a template is not assigned to any product, page or collection before you delete it. Each published Atlas page is a template in your theme, so deleting its template takes that page down.
Building with a pre-built template instead of your own theme's template also avoids the limit for this build.
Step 4: Check your research files
If you uploaded research for this build, try building once without it. A document that cannot be read properly can stall the copywriting stage.
Watch for these while uploading:
Couldn't process this file, with the suggestion to re-save it from Word, Pages or Google DocsFailed to process research docResearch document still analyzing, withStill analyzing your research document. Try again in a moment.
That last one is not a failure. Wait for the analysis to finish before starting the build.
Persona failures, which are different
These messages are not a failed build, and they are fixable in place:
Persona generation failedPersona generation failed — retry aboveFailed to generate home page persona.Failed to generate one or more product personas.Persona generation failed again. Please try once more.
Use the Retry control next to the persona rather than restarting the whole build. You can also open the persona and write it yourself, then continue.
⚠️ Do not build past a failed persona. The page will still generate, but the copy will be written without a defined audience and will read noticeably more generic.
What you have not lost
A failed generation publishes nothing, changes nothing on your storefront, and costs nothing against your allowance. Your project, its research and its settings are untouched.
Leaving the screen while a build runs does not cause a failure either. The build runs on Atlas servers, so it continues whether or not the tab is open.
If it keeps failing
If the same build fails three times with the same products, contact support from the chat bubble in Atlas, or at support@helloatlas.io. Include:
your store URL
the product URLs or product names you were building
how many products were in the build
the exact error text you saw
roughly when you tried
The product URLs are the most useful part. Support can test whether a specific source page is the blocker, which is much faster than reproducing the whole build.