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Documentation Index

Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.spherescout.io/llms.txt

Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

Most issues in SphereScout have a quick fix. This page walks through the problems users run into most often, organized by area, so you can find the right solution without digging through settings. If you work through the steps here and the problem persists, the support team is available at support@spherescout.io.

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Login and account

Start with the basics before anything else:
  1. Check your email address — make sure you’re using the same address you signed up with. If you registered with Google, you need to use Continue with Google rather than entering your email and password manually.
  2. Check your password — passwords are case-sensitive. If you’re unsure, use the Forgot password link on the login page to reset it.
  3. Try Google login — if you originally signed up with Google, the email/password form won’t work for your account. Look for the Continue with Google button on the login page.
  4. Clear your browser cache — a stale session cookie can occasionally prevent login. Clear your cache and cookies, then try again.
If you’re not sure whether you signed up with Google or email, try the Google login option first. It won’t cause any issues if your account was created differently.
If the reset email hasn’t arrived:
  1. Check your spam folder — password reset emails occasionally land in spam or junk. Search for an email from spherescout.io.
  2. Wait five minutes — email delivery can be delayed, especially through corporate mail servers. Give it a few minutes before requesting another reset.
  3. Request a second reset — go back to the login page, click Forgot password, and submit the form again. Only the most recent reset link is valid.
  4. Check for typos — confirm you entered the correct email address when you requested the reset.
If you’ve waited more than 10 minutes and checked your spam folder with no result, contact support@spherescout.io with the email address on your account.
If you see a message that your account is locked or suspended, or if you’re being turned away at login without a clear error:
  • Do not attempt to create a new account, as this may complicate the resolution.
  • Contact the support team directly at support@spherescout.io and include the email address associated with your account.
The team will investigate and respond with next steps.

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Credits and billing

Credits are usually added to your account within a few seconds of a successful payment. If they haven’t appeared:
  1. Wait two to three minutes — payment processing can occasionally take a moment to propagate to your credit balance.
  2. Refresh the dashboard — a hard refresh (Ctrl+Shift+R on Windows/Linux, Cmd+Shift+R on Mac) clears the cached balance display.
  3. Check your email — look for a payment confirmation from Stripe. If no confirmation arrived, the payment may not have completed.
If your credit balance is still incorrect after five minutes and you have a Stripe payment confirmation, contact support@spherescout.io and include the confirmation number from your email.
This error means your credit balance is too low to cover the number of contacts in your export. Here’s how to resolve it:
  1. Check your balance — your current credit balance is shown in the top bar of the dashboard. Confirm how many credits you have available.
  2. Reduce the export size — apply tighter filters to narrow your results to fewer contacts so the export fits within your remaining balance.
  3. Buy a top-up — purchase a one-time credit top-up from the billing page to add credits immediately without changing your plan.
  4. Upgrade your plan — if you’re consistently hitting the limit, upgrading to the next plan tier gives you a larger monthly allocation.
Credits are only deducted at the time of export, not when you run a search. You can refine your filters as many times as you need before downloading.
A declined payment is usually a card-level issue rather than a problem with SphereScout. Try the following:
  1. Verify your card details — check that the card number, expiry date, and CVC are entered correctly, including the billing address if your card requires it.
  2. Try a different card — if you have another card available, use that to complete the purchase.
  3. Contact your bank — some banks block unfamiliar online transactions by default. Call the number on the back of your card to authorize the charge, then retry.
  4. Check your spending limit — some prepaid and virtual cards have per-transaction limits that may be lower than the purchase amount.
If payments continue to fail after trying the above steps, contact support@spherescout.io.

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Searches and exports

Zero results usually means the combination of filters is too narrow. Try these steps in order:
  1. Remove one filter at a time — start by removing the most specific filter (city, then region) and re-run the search after each removal to see where results appear.
  2. Try a broader category — if you’re searching for a narrow specialty, try the parent category. For example, search “Healthcare” instead of a specific subspecialty.
  3. Change the country — if your target market has low coverage, try a neighboring country or a larger market to confirm the category exists in the database.
  4. Check your spelling — if you typed in the category search box, verify the term is spelled correctly or choose from the dropdown list instead.
Start broad and add filters progressively. This gives you a better sense of what the database holds for your target segment before you narrow it down.
Exports typically complete within a few seconds for smaller result sets and up to two minutes for very large exports. If the status has been on “processing” for more than five minutes:
  1. Refresh the page — the export may have completed but the status display didn’t update. Check your Export History to see if the file is ready.
  2. Check your email — large exports are also sent to your account email address when they’re ready.
  3. Try a smaller export — if the export is very large, split it into smaller batches by applying tighter location or category filters.
If the export is still stuck after five minutes and doesn’t appear in your export history, contact support@spherescout.io with the details of your search.
If the downloaded file won’t open or displays garbled characters:
  1. Use Excel or Google Sheets — double-clicking a CSV on some operating systems opens it in a plain text editor. Right-click the file and choose to open it with Excel, or upload it to Google Sheets.
  2. Check the encoding in Excel — if special characters (accents, non-Latin scripts) appear as symbols, use Excel’s Data > From Text/CSV import option and select UTF-8 encoding during import.
  3. Rename the file extension — if the file downloaded without a .csv extension, rename it to filename.csv before opening.
SphereScout exports are UTF-8 encoded to support international business names and addresses. Most modern spreadsheet applications handle UTF-8 by default.
Not every business has an email address or phone number in the public record, so some rows in your export will have empty fields for certain contact types. This is expected behavior, not a data error.To export only contacts with a specific field populated:
  1. Use presence filters before exporting — in the search filters, enable Has email, Has phone, Has website, or the relevant social platform filter. Only contacts that have that field will appear in your results and export.
  2. Combine presence filters — you can apply multiple presence filters at once to require, for example, both an email and a phone number.
Using presence filters before exporting means every credit you spend goes toward a contact you can actually reach through that channel.

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Data freshness

If a freshness check reports that no new contacts have been added since your last export, it means the database for that specific category and location segment is up to date — there are genuinely no net-new records to download at this time.This is not an error. The database is continuously updated, but new businesses are not added at a uniform rate across every segment. Some markets and categories receive new records more frequently than others.Check back after a few days or a week. If you need contacts now, try widening your search to an adjacent region or a broader category.
Freshness checks have a cooldown period to prevent excessive database queries. If you see a rate limit error, the message will include the date and time when you can run another check.Wait until the shown date before attempting another freshness check for that segment. Running checks repeatedly in a short window will not speed up the process — each attempt during the cooldown period will return the same rate limit message.If the cooldown period shown seems unusually long, contact support@spherescout.io.

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API

A 401 error means the API could not authenticate your request. Check the following:
  1. Verify your API key — copy your key directly from the API Keys section in your dashboard settings and paste it into your request. Avoid manual typing to prevent invisible character errors.
  2. Check that the key is active — if you’ve revoked or regenerated the key, the old value will no longer work. Generate a new key and update your integration.
  3. Check the Authorization header format — the correct format is Authorization: Bearer YOUR_API_KEY. Ensure the word Bearer is present with a space before your key, and there are no extra spaces or characters.
  4. Check for whitespace — keys copied from some text editors or password managers can include a trailing space or newline. Trim the value before using it.
If you suspect your API key has been exposed, revoke it immediately from the API Keys section in your dashboard and generate a new one. Do not use a compromised key even temporarily.
A 429 error means you’ve exceeded the API rate limit for your plan. SphereScout enforces rate limits to maintain database performance for all users.To resolve this:
  1. Slow down your request rate — add a delay between requests in your code. A small pause of even 200–500 milliseconds between calls is usually enough to stay within limits.
  2. Batch your requests — instead of making many small requests, combine filters to retrieve larger result sets per call.
  3. Implement retry logic with backoff — when you receive a 429, wait before retrying. Exponential backoff (doubling the wait time on each retry) is a reliable approach.
If your use case requires higher rate limits than your current plan allows, contact support@spherescout.io to discuss options.

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Still need help?

If you’ve worked through the relevant section above and the issue isn’t resolved, the SphereScout support team is here to help.

General support

Email support@spherescout.io for help with your account, exports, credits, or any issue not covered here. Include as much detail as you can — error messages, the steps you’ve already tried, and your account email — so the team can respond quickly.

Enterprise and custom plans

Email contact@spherescout.io for questions about enterprise pricing, high-volume API access, or custom data requirements.