Troubleshooting

Solutions to the problems users most often hit with bid analysis.

Upload Problems

The file is rejected

Cothon accepts PDF, DOC, and DOCX files up to 50 MB. If your document is in another format (e.g., a ZIP from a procurement portal, or an image), convert or extract it to a supported format first.

The file is too large

Files over 50 MB are rejected. Compress the PDF (most PDF tools have a "reduce file size" option) or remove non-essential appendices such as scanned drawings, then upload again.

Analysis Problems

The analysis seems stuck on "Analyzing"

Analyses run in the background, and long, dense documents genuinely take a while. Before assuming a problem:

1. Give it time. Large RFPs can take many minutes to process.
2. You can leave the page — the analysis continues in the background and the document list shows its state.
3. If the document still shows as analyzing after an unusually long time, refresh the page to get its current status. An analysis that ultimately cannot finish is marked failed with an error message.

The analysis failed

A failed analysis shows an error message. The most common causes:

• Unreadable document content — corrupted files or PDFs with unusual internal structure.
• Transient processing errors — occasional service issues on the AI side.

Try uploading the file again. Since there is no re-analyze button, a fresh upload is also how you retry after any failure. If the same file fails repeatedly, try re-saving it (e.g., print to PDF) and uploading the re-saved copy.

The analysis completed but found few or no requirements

Almost always a scanned or image-only PDF — there is little machine-readable text to analyze. Check by trying to select text in the PDF: if you can't, it's an image. Obtain the original digital version from the procurement portal and upload that instead.

Result Quality Problems

Statuses look wrong ("Cannot Meet" things we can do)

The assessment compares requirements against your company profile as it existed at analysis time — not against everything your company actually does. Fixes:

1. Read the justification on the requirement — it states what was missing.
2. Update your company profile with the missing capabilities, certifications, or experience, using the terminology RFPs use.
3. Upload the document again — existing analyses are not re-assessed after profile changes.

See Capability Matching.

The compliance score seems too low

The score counts only Fully Meets requirements, across all requirements — no partial credit, no weighting by criticality. A profile gap that turns several "Fully Meets" into "Partially Meets" lowers the score even though nothing is truly missing. See Compliance Ring for the formula, and read the mandatory banner before drawing conclusions from the percentage.

Flagged terms didn't appear

Terms are detected at analysis time. If you added terms after uploading, they apply only to future analyses — upload the document again. Also confirm the exact term appears in the document text; see Flagged Terms.

Finding and Managing Analyses

I can't find a past analysis

• Search the analysis list by the analysis name or file name — remember it may have been renamed with a custom name.
• Check folders — it may have been moved out of the uncategorized list.
• Check the opportunity it was uploaded from; analyses stay attached to their opportunity's Documents section.

A share link no longer works

Share links stop working when they expire or are revoked by the owner. Ask the owner to create a new link — see Sharing Analyses.

Still Stuck?

If a problem persists after the steps above, note the document name, the approximate time, and any error message shown, and contact your Cothon administrator or support contact.