Troubleshoot chat and citations
Weak answers usually trace back to one of four causes: Atlas cannot see the right source, the question is too broad, retrieval found the wrong passage, or the requested claim is not actually supported by the project.
What this page covers
Symptom-led diagnosis for interrupted generation, failed agent steps, unsupported requests, weak answers, missing citations, and bad anchors.
Check source availability
Open the project and confirm the relevant source is present and processed. A citation cannot point to evidence Atlas has not indexed.
For uploaded PDFs, check that the important pages contain selectable or extracted text. For websites and videos, check that the imported content or transcript covers the section you expected Atlas to use.
Make the question easier to ground
Replace broad prompts with specific ones:
| Weak prompt | Better prompt |
|---|---|
| "Summarize this field." | "Using the uploaded review paper, summarize the three main causes of X and cite each one." |
| "Is this true?" | "Does Source A support the claim that X causes Y? Quote the relevant evidence." |
| "Compare these ideas." | "Compare Source A and Source B on their explanation of X. Use citations from both." |
Mention the source, section, author, concept, or note when you know where the evidence should come from.
Inspect the citation
Open each citation and read the cited passage. A good answer should survive this check:
- The citation points to the correct source.
- The cited passage supports the sentence it is attached to.
- The answer does not make stronger claims than the source allows.
- Conflicting sources are acknowledged instead of flattened into one claim.
If the citation is weak, ask Atlas to revise using only the cited passage or to state that the evidence is insufficient.
Separate project evidence from web evidence
If web search is available and enabled, be explicit about scope. Use "only use my project sources" when you want project-grounded answers. Use "include web search and label outside evidence" when you want broader context.
Recovery prompts
Try one of these:
- "Re-answer using only citations from the selected source."
- "For each claim, show the citation that supports it."
- "Which parts of your answer are not directly supported by my project?"
- "If the sources disagree, list the disagreement instead of choosing one answer."