7. Troubleshooting

Everything says "Pending" and nothing is happening

Classification is batched to keep costs down: a batch goes out when 25 products are queued or 15 minutes have passed. On a small catalogue, waiting is the fix.

If it has been well over 15 minutes:

1. Check your subscription is active. Classification is gated on it. If the subscription was cancelled or a charge failed, products stay pending rather than being thrown away — nothing is lost, and they resume the moment billing is fixed.
2. Press Sync catalog to force a re-import.

I subscribed but the catalogue never classified

This was a real bug and is fixed: the first sync used to run before the subscription registered, so every product was skipped and nothing re-queued them. DutyLookout now re-syncs automatically the moment a subscription becomes active.

If you are on an older version and see this, Sync catalog clears it.

A code looks wrong

1. Read the rationale. It names the deciding factor. Usually the factor is right and the product data was misleading — a "leather" bag that is actually PU, a "steel" bottle with a plastic body.
2. Fix the product data and let it re-classify, if the description was the problem. This helps every future product like it.
3. Override it if you know better. Your code is kept and treated as authoritative.

Please do not just leave a wrong code in the queue. An override is recorded in the audit trail; an ignored row is not.

Everything landed in "Needs review"

Almost always thin product data. Check whether your descriptions actually say what the product is made of and for. A catalogue of titles like "The Cozy Wrap" with empty descriptions cannot be classified confidently by anyone, human or otherwise, and the app reports the low confidence instead of picking a code the description does not support.

Add material and construction detail to a few products, re-sync, and compare.

A product says no code could be determined

The message reads:

We could not determine a tariff code for this product automatically. Add its materials and a fuller description then re-sync, or set the code manually.

That is the app telling you plainly that it could not place the product, which is a legitimate outcome for things that are not really goods — gift cards, services, digital items. Set a code manually or leave it; it will not silently show you something wrong.

Approved codes are not in Shopify

Approved codes write to Product → Shipping → Customs information → HS code. If a code is not there:

• Confirm the row really is Approved and not just Suggested.
• Confirm DutyLookout still has product write permission (reinstalling restores it).
• Give it a minute — write-back is queued, not instantaneous.
• Check the product has inventory tracking. The HS code lives on the inventory item, so a product with no inventory items has nowhere to receive it.

If the HS code arrived but Country/Region of origin is still blank, that is expected: DutyLookout deliberately does not write origin back. See Reviewing and approving codes.

The app shows an error screen

Reload first; embedded apps occasionally lose their session token. If it persists, note what the screen says and contact support — DutyLookout is built to explain failures rather than show a bare status code, so a message with real text in it is useful to us.

Getting help

support@alteredhorizonventures.com — include your store domain and, if it is about a specific product, its title. The audit-trail CSV export is the fastest way to show us what you are seeing.

Next: FAQ →