Generating an AI note by hand
When an order has no note and you want one — including why it can take minutes, why "could not confirm" usually means it worked, and why you only get three tries.
The timings and limits below are current behaviour, not a settled contract. They may change.
On the print page, an order with no AI note shows a banner saying so, with a Generate it button.
The banner is telling you something observable: the field is empty, so that part of the sheet will print blank. It is not telling you anything failed — an empty note can be correct.
It can take minutes
Generating runs on our servers and is allowed up to six minutes. The connection holding your page open is far less patient and can be cut by a proxy, a sleeping computer or the Shopify admin reloading its frame.
Losing that connection does not stop the work. The note is still written.
“Couldn’t confirm a result” usually means it worked
When the page's own waiting window closes, all it can honestly say is that it could not confirm — not that anything failed. The note has usually finished and arrives a moment later.
Give it a couple of minutes and look at the order again. The banner clears itself the moment the note lands.
Leaving the print page does not cancel anything.
Three tries per order
After three attempts on the same order you will see "This order has already been retried 3 times", and the button stops working.
The count is claimed before the work starts, so an attempt whose answer never reached your browser still counts. This is why the advice above matters: checking whether the note quietly arrived is free, and pressing again is not.
An order that will not fill after three tries needs a look at your AI settings, or a word with us — not more presses.
One order at a time
You get "Still finishing another order's note — try this one again in a moment". This is deliberate: it stops a busy queue running up a large bill by clicking through it.
Come back to the second order once the first has finished.
Does a retry cost credits?
If the automation already ran on this order, re-running it is free. If the order predates the day you switched the feature on, there is no earlier run to build on and the generation is charged normally.
That second case is the common one immediately after enabling AI, because notes are written when an order arrives — so your whole back catalogue shows the banner and every one of those is a fresh charge.
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