I pasted something and Otto ignored it: the "connect your PayPal" card that holds your message

You pasted a template into chat, most likely an invoice or a short note about how your clients pay you, and the answer that came back was strange, off topic, or read as though nothing had been pasted at all. Performers describe it to us in different words: "When I give it a template for invoices, it responds strangely", or "it ignored what I pasted", or "my message disappeared", or "it keeps asking me to connect PayPal" when connecting PayPal was never the point. You did nothing wrong and your template is fine. This was a bug in the app, and it is fixed in version 1.11.21.

What was actually happening

The app reads your chat message for signs that Otto will need a connection that is not switched on yet, so it can hand you the button then and there instead of letting Otto dead-end in prose. On builds before 1.11.21 that check was far too eager about payment brands. The moment your paste landed, the app spotted the bare word PayPal inside it and put up a card reading "To use PayPal (payments) for you, connect your own PayPal (payments) account first."

That card does something you cannot see from the outside: it holds your message. Your paste sat behind the card and never reached Otto. Whatever he said next, he said with no idea the template existed, which is exactly why the reply looked like he had ignored you. He was not refusing your template. He never saw it. A connection prompt jumped in front of it.

The reassuring part, because this is what worries people most: payment lines in an invoice like Zelle (preferred), Paypal, Apple Pay, Venmo and Credit card: link available upon request are a plain fact about how your clients pay you. Otto never needs a PayPal login to remember that. The app was treating a payment method listed inside your own invoice as a request to hook up a payments account, which is not the same thing at all.

Two things that look like the fix and are not

Almost everyone tries one of these first. Both are dead ends. Skip them.

• Stripping the payment words out of your template so the card stops appearing. Your template is right as written. An invoice template that no longer says how you get paid is worth less to you and less to Otto, and you would be rewriting your own paperwork around a bug on our side.
• Connecting PayPal to make the card go away. You do not need a PayPal connection to save a template, and connecting one does not retrieve the paste that was already held. Nothing about your business requires it here.

The escape on any build: Send anyway

If you are still on an older version, or you meet a connection card of any kind that appeared without you asking for it, this releases your message in one tap.

1. Paste the template into the message box again and press Enter.
2. When the connect your own PayPal (payments) account card appears in the conversation, click Send anyway.
3. Your held paste goes straight through to Otto, and he saves the template the way he said he would.

Nothing about your payments gets connected by doing this, and no credentials are typed anywhere. The card is an offer, not a requirement. Send anyway declines the offer and lets your words past. That card looks alarming enough that people freeze in front of it rather than tap through, so it is worth saying outright: this is the right button here.

Two more things about the card while you are looking at it. Once you have tapped Send anyway, the app treats that connection as settled and will not raise it again for the rest of that conversation. And the third button, Not now, is not the same move: it clears the card and puts your words back into the message box unsent, so you would have to send them yourself.

The real fix, shipped in 1.11.21

Naming a payment brand no longer counts as asking to connect it. The app now looks for the intent behind the words instead of the brand name on its own.

• connect my PayPal, or hook up PayPal so you can see refunds: the card still comes up, because you are genuinely asking for the connection.
• I take payment by PayPal or Venmo, or an invoice template whose payment block lists Zelle (preferred), Paypal, Apple Pay, Venmo and Credit card: link available upon request: no card at all, and the paste reaches Otto on the first try.

The identical problem on Stripe was fixed in the same release, since it would have caught you the same way. The invoice template that produced this bug is now a permanent test in our suite, so this particular annoyance cannot quietly come back.

Getting the update

1. Quit Booked Solid fully and reopen it. The app re-checks for an update on every launch and downloads it quietly in the background.
2. If you would rather not wait, click Check for updates in the top bar. When the update window reaches ready, click Restart & install.
3. To confirm which version you are on, open Settings and read the Updates section. It tells you the version you are running. Anything from 1.11.21 upwards has the fix.

If the update refuses to land, work through The app is stuck on an old version or won't update in the Installing & updating folder. Nothing in that article risks your saved work.

The rule worth remembering

This is the reusable lesson, and it is true of every connection card in chat, not only the payments ones. Any time a card appears and your message seems to have vanished, your message is being held, not lost. There are two ways out and both of them send it: tap Send anyway to release it untouched, or complete the connection if you did mean to connect that service. Your words are never quietly thrown away, and you never have to retype a long paste because a card interrupted it.

If it still does not work

If you are on 1.11.21 or later and a paste still raises a connection card you did not ask for, or Send anyway does not release your message, submit a ticket from this help center. Tell us the version shown in Settings > Updates and include the exact text you sent, with your real email addresses and payment handles swapped for placeholders if you prefer. A screenshot of the card itself is the single most useful thing you can attach: the screenshot on the original ticket is what made this one quick to pin down.

Still stuck? Submit a ticket from this help center and we'll take it from there.