Troubleshooting - FactorCat

Solutions for common FactorCat issues. If your problem isn’t covered here, check the FAQ or contact us.

Push notifications not arriving

Fast escape hatch: if a push doesn’t land, open the FactorCat app on your phone or refresh the dashboard. Pending approval requests appear on the app’s home screen the moment it opens, and you can approve or deny from either surface without waiting for the notification.

Your approval history - including delivery status for each request - is available in the dashboard’s history view. Free plans retain 30 days of history; Paid Individual plans retain 365 days.

For everything else, most push issues fall into one of two buckets: the notification was delivered to Apple or Google successfully but your phone didn’t surface it, or it hit a provider error. The dashboard shows which state a given approval is in.

Delivered, but you didn’t see it

This is the most common case. Our servers handed the notification off to Apple or Google successfully - from there, whether the notification reaches your phone screen depends on your OS. Almost always fixable in system settings. Try each in order:

Check notification permissions for FactorCat. iOS: Settings > Notifications > FactorCat. Android: Settings > Apps > FactorCat > Notifications.
Turn off Do Not Disturb / Focus Mode, or allow FactorCat through it. Both iOS and Android silently suppress notifications when these are on.
Turn off Low Power Mode. Android throttles low-priority pushes; iOS delays background fetch under low battery.
Enable Background App Refresh for FactorCat (iOS: Settings > General > Background App Refresh).
If your OS updated recently, force-quit FactorCat and relaunch it. OS updates can reset push registration.
Check your Apple Watch. If a paired watch is in reach, iOS may deliver the notification there instead of your phone. Look at the watch, or move it out of range to force the phone to handle it.
Make sure you’re still signed in on the phone (a stale session can cause silent drops).

Provider errors

If the dashboard shows a Provider error on an approval row, here’s what each label means:

Device unregistered - Your phone’s push token has been invalidated (usually because notifications were disabled at the OS level, or the app was reinstalled). Re-enable notifications for FactorCat, or unpair and re-pair the device from Settings > Devices in the app.
Service unavailable - Apple or Google’s push service is having a transient outage. Wait a few minutes and try again.
Rate limited - Too many notifications in a short window. Wait a few minutes.
Network unreachable - Your phone was offline when we tried to send the push. Reconnect and try the request again.
Misconfigured - Rare, likely on our end. Contact us with a screenshot.

Re-register with our push service

If the checks above didn’t help, force FactorCat to re-register:

Toggle Push Notifications off and back on inside the mobile app: Settings > Push Notifications. Re-registers with both the mobile OS and our cloud.
Reinstall the app as a last resort. Uninstalling and reinstalling re-registers your device for push notifications from scratch. Your factors are safe - Cloud Vault factors sync back on sign-in, and Locked Vault factors recover via OS backup or your emergency kit.

If the problem persists after all of the above and it’s a repeatable pattern, contact us - we’ll help track it down.

Approval timed out

If you see “Approval timed out” in the browser extension:

Your phone didn’t receive or respond to the notification in time. The approval window is limited. If the notification arrived late or you missed it, try again — the extension will send a new push request.

Check your vault approval settings. Different settings handle timeouts differently:

Always require approval — the request fails on timeout. You’ll need to trigger a new approval from the extension.
Require when online — if your phone is unreachable, Cloud Vault factors fall back to server-generated codes automatically. No action needed.
Never require (Cloud Vault only) — codes are generated without approval. You shouldn’t see timeout errors with this setting.

You can adjust approval settings per vault in the mobile app under Settings > Vaults or on the web dashboard.

If timeouts happen frequently, check that push notifications are working (see above) and that your phone has a stable internet connection.

Extension not detecting MFA fields

If the FactorCat extension isn’t recognizing a site’s MFA input field:

The site may use a non-standard implementation. FactorCat’s extension detects standard TOTP input fields by their type, autocomplete attributes, and surrounding context. Some sites use custom implementations (iframes, shadow DOM, dynamically injected fields) that may not be detected automatically.

Try the manual fallback. Click the FactorCat extension icon in your browser toolbar. If you have a matching factor for the current domain, you can copy the code from the popup and paste it manually.

Make sure you have a factor for that domain. The extension matches factors to sites by domain. If the domain in your factor metadata doesn’t match the site you’re on, the extension won’t offer a code. You can edit factor metadata (domain, service name) in the mobile app or web dashboard.

Report the site. If a specific site consistently isn’t detected, let us know — we can investigate whether it’s a detection gap we can fix.

Pairing failed

If your phone and browser extension aren’t linking:

Make sure you’re signed in to the same account on both devices. If you used Google on your phone and Apple in the extension (with different email addresses), they won’t link. Check which account you’re signed in with on each device.

Try same-account auto-linking first. If both devices are signed in with the same account, they should link automatically. Close and reopen the extension to trigger a fresh check.

Re-scan the QR code. If auto-linking didn’t work, open the extension, go to pairing, and scan the QR code with your phone’s FactorCat app. Make sure the QR is fully visible on screen and your phone’s camera has a clear view.

Check your internet connection. Both devices need to be online for pairing to complete. The pairing handshake happens through FactorCat’s servers, not directly between devices.

Sign out and back in. As a last resort, sign out of FactorCat on both devices and sign back in. This resets the device registration and forces a fresh link.

For more on how pairing works, see Pairing Your Phone and Browser.

Lost phone recovery

What to do depends on which vault type your factors are in:

Cloud Vault factors

Your Cloud Vault factors are safe. Sign in to FactorCat on a new device (or the web dashboard) with the same account, and they’re available immediately. No recovery key needed.

Locked Vault factors

Locked Vault factors use zero-knowledge encryption — FactorCat doesn’t have your master key. Recovery works in two ways:

OS backup (usually automatic). If your iCloud Keychain (iOS) or Google encrypted backup (Android) includes your master key, restoring to a new device recovers your Locked Vaults automatically. This is the most common recovery path.
Emergency kit. If OS backup doesn’t cover you, enter your 12-word recovery phrase or scan your recovery QR code on the new device. See Emergency Kit & Recovery for the full process.

If you have no backup at all

If your Locked Vault master key isn’t in your OS backup and you didn’t save your recovery phrase or QR code, those Locked Vault factors are permanently irrecoverable. FactorCat uses zero-trust encryption — we never had your key.

Your Cloud Vault factors are still safe and accessible. For accounts whose factors were in a lost Locked Vault, you’ll need to go through each service’s account recovery process and set up new factors.

To prevent this in the future: open Settings > Security > Show Master Key and save your recovery phrase now. See Emergency Kit & Recovery for more on protecting yourself.

Still stuck? Contact us — we’ll help you figure it out.