Troubleshoot Knowledge Base issues
Crisp Knowledge Base is easy to install on your own domain. In case you encounter some issues, this article is there to help you troubleshoot them.
When you configure a custom domain for your Crisp Knowledge Base, you are told to setup custom DNS records on the domain you want your Knowledge Base to be available on.
You may get an error message while validating your Knowledge Base custom domain if all records were not properly configured. The invalid records will be remaining, while valid records will not be shown anymore.
This lets you fix all remaining DNS record issues. If your DNS server has a high TTL (eg. 3 hours or more), you may need to wait before re-validating. As the DNS system cached your previous, invalid records, Crisp will still see the invalid records. Come back later on and re-validate (for instance, 24 hours later).
If you are using the BIND DNS server, or an advanced DNS editor, you may need to add dots (".") at the end of each CNAME pointing to Crisp. This is why the DNS records we provide have a dot (".") at the end. Some providers (eg. Cloudflare) don't require them, and strip them when you copy / paste them.
Beware: some CDN + DNS providers, such as Cloudflare, enable "proxy" mode by default when you add a new DNS record. This will prevent Crisp from validating your DNS setup. In such cases, disable the "proxy" mode and try again.
The Crisp Knowledge Base has a cache of a few seconds on all categories, articles and your Knowledge Base homepage. If you update an article and quickly try to refresh it in your browser, the changes will not be immediately reflected. You need to wait a few seconds for the cache to be purged and the new changes available online.
The cache on your Knowledge Base helps protect it against DOS attacks (load attacks where someone requests a large number of pages in a short period of time), and also speed up user browsing.
Articles that have no category assigned cannot be shown in any category on homepage, or in the category navigation. Thus, it will be unlisted from public browsing, but the article will still be available publicly for those having the public link, those coming from search engines (Google), or those searching using the Knowledge Base search tool.
You may configure a category for the article if you want it to be visible in the public browsing views.
If there's anything that's wrongly configured on your Knowledge Base, your Knowledge Base pages will show a Crisp error page. This page instructs you of which action you should take on your end.
Yellow errors are errors that usually require you to take action to fix them. Here's a list of errors you may get:
Error 400 : The browser made a bad request to the Knowledge Base (this is a browser issue)
Error 402 : The Knowledge Base plugin is inactive (you need to re-enable it on your Crisp Dashboard)
Error 403 : The Knowledge Base is not allowed (you are not allowed to see the Knowledge Base at this time)
Error 408 : The request to the Knowledge Base too too much time (this is a browser / network issue)
Error 410 : There is no such Knowledge Base (no Knowledge Base is configured for the requested domain)
Error 412 : The Knowledge Base is not yet configured (please add at least one Helpdesk language, eg. English)
Error 420 : Your network is sending way too much requests to the Crisp Knowledge Base system and has been temporarily blocked
Error 429 : Your network is sending too much requests to the Crisp Knowledge Base system and has been temporarily blocked
Red errors are errors of the Crisp Knowledge Base system that require our developers to take a look. This should never happen. Our team closely monitor all errors that occur. If a red error stays visible for more than a few minutes, please contact us .
Error 500 : A bug occurred while rendering the page. Our teams have been notified.
Error 502 : The Knowledge Base system is temporarily unavailable. It might be in maintenance.
Error 503 : The Knowledge Base system is temporarily unavailable. It might be in maintenance.
Error 504 : The Knowledge Base system is temporarily unavailable. It might be in maintenance.
When you change your Knowledge Base domain, or setup a custom Helpdesk domain, your Knowledge Base may not be immediately reachable. Your browser will show an SSL error (as shown in Safari on image below). The reason is the following: when you add a new Knowledge Base domain or update it, Crisp needs to request a SSL certificate from an external SSL authority for your domain. The process takes a maximum of 2 minutes, but should take less time in most cases (around 1 minute).
When you refresh the page to check if the Knowledge Base is now available, you may still encounter the SSL error, as Web browsers cache SSL sessions for a few minutes. Thus, you should open a private navigation session and re-open your Knowledge Base there to test. Restarting your browser may also help.
If the SSL error persists or happens when your Knowledge Base was previously running since a long time, please contact us . This may happen if your managed SSL certificate failed to auto-renew. Though, this should never happen as we are closely monitoring this system.
My custom Knowledge Base domain is rejected
When you configure a custom domain for your Crisp Knowledge Base, you are told to setup custom DNS records on the domain you want your Knowledge Base to be available on.
You may get an error message while validating your Knowledge Base custom domain if all records were not properly configured. The invalid records will be remaining, while valid records will not be shown anymore.
This lets you fix all remaining DNS record issues. If your DNS server has a high TTL (eg. 3 hours or more), you may need to wait before re-validating. As the DNS system cached your previous, invalid records, Crisp will still see the invalid records. Come back later on and re-validate (for instance, 24 hours later).
If you are using the BIND DNS server, or an advanced DNS editor, you may need to add dots (".") at the end of each CNAME pointing to Crisp. This is why the DNS records we provide have a dot (".") at the end. Some providers (eg. Cloudflare) don't require them, and strip them when you copy / paste them.
Beware: some CDN + DNS providers, such as Cloudflare, enable "proxy" mode by default when you add a new DNS record. This will prevent Crisp from validating your DNS setup. In such cases, disable the "proxy" mode and try again.
My Knowledge Base articles or categories are not updated
The Crisp Knowledge Base has a cache of a few seconds on all categories, articles and your Knowledge Base homepage. If you update an article and quickly try to refresh it in your browser, the changes will not be immediately reflected. You need to wait a few seconds for the cache to be purged and the new changes available online.
The cache on your Knowledge Base helps protect it against DOS attacks (load attacks where someone requests a large number of pages in a short period of time), and also speed up user browsing.
My Knowledge Base article is not listed
Articles that have no category assigned cannot be shown in any category on homepage, or in the category navigation. Thus, it will be unlisted from public browsing, but the article will still be available publicly for those having the public link, those coming from search engines (Google), or those searching using the Knowledge Base search tool.
You may configure a category for the article if you want it to be visible in the public browsing views.
My Knowledge Base cannot be accessed
I see a Crisp error page
If there's anything that's wrongly configured on your Knowledge Base, your Knowledge Base pages will show a Crisp error page. This page instructs you of which action you should take on your end.
Yellow errors
Yellow errors are errors that usually require you to take action to fix them. Here's a list of errors you may get:
Error 400 : The browser made a bad request to the Knowledge Base (this is a browser issue)
Error 402 : The Knowledge Base plugin is inactive (you need to re-enable it on your Crisp Dashboard)
Error 403 : The Knowledge Base is not allowed (you are not allowed to see the Knowledge Base at this time)
Error 408 : The request to the Knowledge Base too too much time (this is a browser / network issue)
Error 410 : There is no such Knowledge Base (no Knowledge Base is configured for the requested domain)
Error 412 : The Knowledge Base is not yet configured (please add at least one Helpdesk language, eg. English)
Error 420 : Your network is sending way too much requests to the Crisp Knowledge Base system and has been temporarily blocked
Error 429 : Your network is sending too much requests to the Crisp Knowledge Base system and has been temporarily blocked
Red errors
Red errors are errors of the Crisp Knowledge Base system that require our developers to take a look. This should never happen. Our team closely monitor all errors that occur. If a red error stays visible for more than a few minutes, please contact us .
Error 500 : A bug occurred while rendering the page. Our teams have been notified.
Error 502 : The Knowledge Base system is temporarily unavailable. It might be in maintenance.
Error 503 : The Knowledge Base system is temporarily unavailable. It might be in maintenance.
Error 504 : The Knowledge Base system is temporarily unavailable. It might be in maintenance.
I see a SSL error warning on my Knowledge Base
When you change your Knowledge Base domain, or setup a custom Helpdesk domain, your Knowledge Base may not be immediately reachable. Your browser will show an SSL error (as shown in Safari on image below). The reason is the following: when you add a new Knowledge Base domain or update it, Crisp needs to request a SSL certificate from an external SSL authority for your domain. The process takes a maximum of 2 minutes, but should take less time in most cases (around 1 minute).
When you refresh the page to check if the Knowledge Base is now available, you may still encounter the SSL error, as Web browsers cache SSL sessions for a few minutes. Thus, you should open a private navigation session and re-open your Knowledge Base there to test. Restarting your browser may also help.
If the SSL error persists or happens when your Knowledge Base was previously running since a long time, please contact us . This may happen if your managed SSL certificate failed to auto-renew. Though, this should never happen as we are closely monitoring this system.
Updated on: 03/03/2025
Thank you!