Troubleshooting

Find the symptom you see, then work through the checks from top to bottom.

The widget does not appear

Before checking the embed, rule out the two conditions that stop the widget loading on purpose:

1. Monthly message limit reached. Check the message count on Account. When the limit is reached the widget does not render at all — visitors see nothing. It returns when the month rolls over or the plan is raised.
2. Mikabot temporarily unavailable. The widget also stays hidden. The dashboard shows a banner at the top of the page when this happens.

Then the embed itself:

3. View the page source and search for MIKADO_CHATBOT_CONFIG. If it is missing, the snippet was never published — see Install the widget.
4. Check that Settings → General settings → Active is switched on. New chatbots are created inactive.
5. Confirm store_id in the snippet matches the Chatbot key on Settings → General settings.
6. Clear theme, plugin, and CDN caches, then reload in a private window.
7. Open the browser console and look for errors from mikabot-init.js.
8. If you are using the container option, confirm the element exists in the DOM before the loader runs. When the selector matches nothing, the widget renders nowhere.

The widget opens but does not reply

1. Send a test message from the Demo page link on Settings → General settings. If the demo works but your site does not, the problem is in the embed.
2. Check Chat conversations for the failed message. The stored Response payload usually names the cause.
3. Look for a banner at the top of the dashboard.

No products are suggested

1. Confirm Settings → General settings → Enable ecommerce is on. Without it, product search is disabled entirely and the Ecommerce menu is hidden.
2. Open Ecommerce → Products. If the list is empty, no feed has imported successfully.
3. Check that products exist for the language the visitor is using. Products are stored per language.
4. Review Ecommerce → AI configuration → Search Strategy. Category Search Only returns nothing when your categories are empty.
5. Check Ecommerce → AI configuration → Do not recommend unavailable products. With it on, anything your feed marks out of stock is skipped.

A product feed import fails

1. Open the feed URL in a private browser window. It must be publicly reachable without a login.
2. Match the feed type to the file: Google Shopping Feed for XML, Custom CSV Feed for CSV.
3. Every item needs a unique id. Items without one are skipped and reported as missing id.
4. For Google Shopping XML, add product_type to every item. Without it Mikabot cannot build categories for that item.
5. Import one language at a time and compare the counters — Products in Feed versus Products in DB.

Full field list: Product feed field reference.

The bot replies in the wrong language

The widget picks its starting language in this order:

1. The language value in your embed snippet
2. The lang attribute on your <html> tag
3. The visitor’s browser language
4. English

So the checks are:

1. Check the language value in your embed snippet.
2. Make sure the value is one Mikabot recognises: en, nl, fr, de, es, it. Anything else is ignored and the next step in the order applies.
3. Check your <html lang> attribute for the same reason. A regional value such as en-US or nl-BE is not matched — use the bare two-letter code.
4. Confirm the language is activated under Settings → Site info → Website Languages.
5. Check that responses exist in that language under Settings → AI smart responses. A missing translation falls back to English.

Whatever the starting language, the bot follows the visitor: writing in French gets a French reply.

Chat transcripts are not emailed

1. Turn on Settings → General settings → Enable chat e-mail to contact.
2. Fill in Email Recipients, separating multiple addresses with semicolons (;), not commas.
3. The transcript is sent only after a visitor provides an email address or phone number in the chat.

Still stuck?

1. Email [email protected]
2. Include your chatbot key, the affected page URL, and the exact symptom
3. Attach screenshots and any browser console errors

We respond within 24 hours on business days.