Symptoms
An Ask answer is off: it missed pages you know are relevant, misstated what you wrote, or said your notes don't cover something they do.
Possible causes
- The relevant pages aren't in SandDune yet — still in the physical notebook, or uploaded without transcription. Ask can only read what's been transcribed.
- Transcription errors in the source pages — if the key word was misread, the page won't be gathered for your question.
- A vague or unanchored question — "how am I doing?" gives the gatherer little to work with. No timeframe means it leans on topical matches and recent pages.
- A notebook scope you forgot about — asked inside a notebook, Ask reads only that notebook.
- Wrong Date Written on key pages — time-anchored questions fetch by date; pages dated wrong land outside the window.
How to fix
- Check the citations first. They show exactly which pages the answer read. Relevant page missing from them? That's your diagnosis — the page wasn't found, so the problem is retrieval (causes above), not reasoning.
- Re-ask with anchors: a timeframe ("in March 2026") and specific words you actually use in your journal. Each re-ask uses an Ask unit, so make it count.
- Fix the sources: correct transcriptions on the key pages (how), fix any wrong Date Written, then ask again.
- Escape the scope: clear the notebook view to ask across everything.
- Rate it 👎. The thumbs-down is wired straight into our quality evaluation — it genuinely matters.
When to contact support
If answers consistently misquote pages that are transcribed correctly and cited, email support@sanddune.ai with the question you asked and roughly when — we can review that run end-to-end and find what went wrong.