Couldn't reach the AI service

You clicked Generate draft, waited on Building your survey…, and got one of: Couldn’t reach the AI service. Try again, or create an empty survey., The draft came back malformed. Try rephrasing your brief, or create an empty survey., AI drafting isn’t available right now — create an empty survey instead., or Something went wrong generating the draft.

Why it happens

Your brief goes to an AI provider, which writes the sections and questions. Mapsurvey checks the result before saving anything; only a draft that passes becomes a survey. Each message points at a different stage.

• Couldn’t reach the AI service. The provider timed out, refused the request or returned an error. It also appears when the answer was cut off twice in a row because the brief asks for more survey than fits in one answer.
• The draft came back malformed. The provider answered, but the draft failed Mapsurvey’s checks twice. A corrected draft is requested once automatically; a second failure is reported instead of saved.
• AI drafting isn’t available right now. No AI provider is configured on this installation. On a self-hosted instance the provider key is not set.
• Something went wrong. An unexpected error, already reported to the team.

There is no limit on drafts on any plan, so running out of allowance is never the cause.

What to do

1. Close the message. Your brief is still in the form.
2. Click Generate draft again; a provider error is usually temporary.
3. If it fails a second time, shorten the brief: say what you want to learn and from whom, and ask for fewer sections. Keep the list of survey languages short on the first attempt; you can add translations later.
4. If you left the page while it was generating, open your dashboard. The draft is created even when the tab is closed, and a finished survey is waiting there.
5. If you need the survey now, click Create empty and build it by hand; Start here walks through the first survey.
6. On a self-hosted instance, set the provider credentials described in the project README and restart.

If it keeps happening

Contact support with the exact message, the time of the attempt, the languages you selected and the brief. Failed attempts are logged, so the time lets us find yours.