A feature stopped working after an update: nothing was removed - check Connections first

Your app has slowly stopped feeling like one system. A performer wrote to us in these exact words, and if you are reading this you probably recognise them: "At one point everything was running properly but it seems with every OS update and every brain update I lose a function - so now I have a system that feels very discombobulated. I need help thanks". Nothing was taken out of your app. When a feature disappeared after the update, it is almost always one saved connection that quietly stopped working, and this page is the order to check things in.

The baseline: an update replaces the app, not your work

Start from this, because it changes what you go looking for. An update replaces the program itself and nothing else. Your gigs, your leads and your Brain live in your Booking HQ folder on your own disk. Your sign-in, your purchase and your app settings are kept separately by the app, on the same computer. An update reaches into neither, which is why you come back from a restart exactly where you left off. An update adds and fixes: it does not take features away, and it does not remove a capability from your account.

So if something worked in June and does not work today, the feature is still there. Something in front of it is switched off or unauthorised. That is a much smaller problem than the one it feels like, and it is usually a two minute fix.

"Brain update" and "app update" are two different things

These get blurred together and it is worth separating them, because only one of them can change how Otto behaves.

• An app update is a new version of the program. It arrives on its own, you install it with Restart & install, and it touches nothing but the app. See How updates work: the update badge and Restart & install.
• A brain update is something you approved. When Otto proposes a change to your voice, your offers, your policies or another operating file, it parks a Waiting on your word card in the Brain and does nothing until you click Make it so.

Neither one deletes a function. But a brain update can change how Otto writes or decides, and if that is what shifted under you, it is directly reversible: open the Brain, scroll to What's changed, and click Put it back on that file's entry. The operating file goes back to the version it had before its last change, and the put-back is written into the same history. Every approved change is listed there, so approving a proposal is never a one way door.

First check: a connection that needs reconnect

This is the big one, and it is step one for a reason. It explains most post-update "missing feature" reports we get.

Your keys and mail passwords are stored in an encrypted vault that is locked with your own computer's keychain. That is deliberate, and it is why a copy of the vault file is useless on anybody else's machine. The side effect is that the vault can occasionally fail to open for a session, and an app update is one of the moments that can happen. When a saved password or key cannot be unlocked, the app refuses to pretend it still works. It drops that connection honestly, and every tool that connection powered goes quiet.

Nothing announces this in the middle of your day. Otto simply stops drafting email, or the calendar clash check stops firing, or a Play that used to run does not. From where you sit, a feature vanished. What actually happened is that one connection is sitting in the state our replies call Needs reconnect, waiting to be put right once.

Open the Connections tab and read it top to bottom. You are looking for amber, in two shapes.

A saved mail password that will not unlock

For Gmail, the amber badge is not on the account itself. It is further down the same tab, under Tool access, on the Gmail (app password) row, which reads Needs attention. Open that row and the reason is spelled out, naming the address: the saved password for that address couldn't be unlocked on this machine. That can happen after an update - the password itself is still right.

Other inboxes and calendars get no badge of their own, so check those by hand: tap Check it on the row under Mail & calendars. A password that will not unlock answers No saved password for this account - add it again. A calendar that could not be read is also named in the small grey line near the top of that section.

The repair is the same either way, and it lives under Mail & calendars.

1. Open Connections > Mail & calendars and find the account that was named.
2. Tap Edit on that row. The form opens filled in, with the password box left blank.
3. Enter the same app password again. You do not need a new one. The password was never wrong.
4. Click Save.

Otto picks it up from the next conversation. If you were mid-chat when you fixed it, start a fresh chat, because the tools are wired in at the moment a conversation begins and the one you are already inside will not see the repair.

A connector that uses a key

On a connector card, a live check that fails shows an amber pill reading needs sign-in again. A key that no longer decrypts is worse than that: the card can read as though nothing was ever saved, because the app counts a key as usable only if it still opens on this machine.

1. Find the connector on the Connections tab.
2. Use Paste key on that card and paste the key in again, exactly the way you did the first time.

That is the whole fix. Nothing else is affected, because each key is handed only to the tool that needs it. Two articles go deeper: Connected, Key saved, or Linked: what each Connections badge really means tells you how much to trust each badge, and "Your saved keys couldn't be unlocked on this machine": fixing keys after a computer change covers the same failure after a new computer, an OS reinstall or a keychain reset.

The dead end: restarting the app

Almost everyone restarts the app first, and for this it is a dead end. Quitting and reopening does not re-enter a password and does not re-approve a connection, so nothing changes and you conclude the feature really is gone. Reinstalling does not fix it either. Re-entering the credential is the fix, and it is the only fix. Skip the restart and go straight to the Connections tab.

Second check: the feature is simply switched off

If Connections is all green, the next most common cause is a switch.

• Tool access on the Connections tab holds Web browsing and Control this computer. If Otto has stopped being able to look anything up, check Web browsing here first. Plenty of people turned this one off themselves during an earlier problem and forgot.
• Saving a key switches its tool on in the same action, and Remove key switches that tool back off in the same action. If you removed a key at some point to tidy up, you also turned off the thing it powered.
• Settings > Permissions governs how far each connected tool is allowed to reach. A tool can be connected and still be held short of the thing you are asking for.
• Autopilot switches itself off at the end of every run by design, so a row that has gone back to Turn on is not a lost function. If that is your missing function, it has a dedicated article rather than being an update casualty.

Third: name the functions, one at a time

This is the part that decides whether we can help you quickly, so here is the honest reason for it. "The whole thing feels discombobulated" cannot be traced. There is no log line for it, no setting behind it, and no single fix that matches it. "The Gig Desk cards have been blank since Tuesday" can be traced, and usually within one reply.

Before you write to us, or before you start hunting yourself, answer two questions on paper:

1. Which specific functions feel missing? List them one by one, in your own words. "Otto used to draft my replies and now does not." "The calendar clash check stopped warning me." "New leads stopped arriving." A rough list is enough. Each line points at a different cause.
2. Roughly when did the last version that felt right feel right? A week is fine. "It was good before I went on tour" is fine. It tells us which builds and which changes to look at.

What one vague complaint actually turned out to be

The ticket this article came from is a good illustration, and it is why we ask for the list. One performer's tangled system, once it was itemised, was not one fault at all. It was three separate problems, each with its own real and different fix:

• An automation script he had written himself had been flattened to a one line stub. A real loss, and nothing to do with updates. Since v1.11.13 the app mechanically refuses to let a run overwrite an existing file you made yourself, at every involvement setting, with notes and plain text files as the one exception. See Otto changed or wiped out a file you wrote: undo the last run, and what to do when undo cannot help.
• Gig Desk cards arriving with only a name on them. Not a missing setting and not a broken import. It is how the cards fill today, and it has its own article: Gig Desk cards are blank, or a booked gig is stuck in "New Inquiries".
• The app holding on to Chrome on his Mac. A genuine bug of ours, fixed in v1.11.11. See Booked Solid has taken over Chrome on my Mac: extra windows, no new browser, and a Mac that will not restart.

Not one of those three was an update removing a feature. Two were fixed by updating, and the third was a setting he could see once he knew where to look. That is the usual shape of it.

If a file of yours really did change

Be blunt with yourself here, because the recovery routes are narrow.

• If the damage came from the run that just finished, use Undo last run on the Activity view. It puts the run's file changes back and keeps any edits you made afterwards. Full detail: Otto changed or wiped out a file you wrote: undo the last run, and what to do when undo cannot help.
• If it was an approved brain change, use Put it back in the Brain's What's changed history, as above.
• If the file was changed days ago, there is no built in version history for your Booking HQ files, and there is no sentence you can say to Otto that walks one file back to how it looked last week. If you have been told to ask for a restore from git, do not build your plan on it. Read the file recovery article linked above before you run anything else.

Update before you conclude anything

Several of the things people report as lost functions were real bugs that already have fixes shipped. Click Check for updates next to the logo and install whatever it offers before you spend an evening auditing settings. As a floor: v1.11.11 cleans up leftover hidden browser copies, and v1.11.13 added the guard that stops a run overwriting your own files. If you are behind either of those, update first and re-test the function that is bothering you.

If it still does not work

Submit a ticket from this help center and give us four things: the named list of functions that feel missing, roughly when each last worked, your app version, and whether anything on the Connections tab is amber. If you can, add a support bundle. It is in the Settings tab at the far right, scrolled down to Generate Support Bundle, and it is not under Help me whatever an older reply of ours may have told you.

We will go function by function with you. A list of five specific complaints is a good afternoon's work to clear. One sentence saying everything feels tangled is not something anyone can act on, however much we want to.