Session failed
What a failed PM session means (nothing saved, nothing sent), what causes one, where it shows, and when it is worth reporting.
- Who it is for
- Owners & operators
- Reading time
- 5 min read
- Updated
A session of the PM "fails" when it ends without a result the system can trust. The rule is fail closed: no are saved and nothing reaches the . There is no such thing as a half-finished batch; either the structured output passed every check and was stored, or zero proposals were stored. Positions, orders and settings are untouched.
Where it shows
- Desk: the session's line in the day's list carries a Stopped early pill, with what it cost. Open it and one sentence says why and that nothing unfinished was recorded; the failure as it was recorded sits under Technical details. What the session read before it stopped is still there.
- Overview: only failures that concern your decisions or your money appear under Alerts, in plain words: "The PM did not a ", "The 12:00 intraday check did not run", "Your desk is paused because today's AI budget is spent".
- Inbox › Activity, with the Problems chip on: everything else is here as its own row, also in plain words: "A desk session's output could not be read", "An intraday check ran out of time and was stopped", "A desk session stopped at its spending cap", "Today's model budget is spent".
The causes
The model's answer did not fit the shape a session's result must have
- How it reads
- "A desk session's output could not be read", with "nothing from it was applied"; zero proposals
- What to do
- Nothing; the next session starts fresh
Timeout: 15 minutes for premarket, postmarket, briefs and ad-hoc runs, 13 for intraday, 10.5 for an event-driven session
- How it reads
- "An intraday check ran out of time and was stopped" (the row names the kind of session)
- What to do
- Nothing; if it repeats, report it
Per-session cost cap reached ($5 by default, or less when little of the day's budget is left)
- How it reads
- "A desk session stopped at its spending cap"; the session stopped where it was
- What to do
- Nothing; the cap is shown on Desk › Portfolio Manager › Settings. Report it if it repeats
The day's AI budget is spent
- How it reads
- The session does not start and costs $0.00; "Today's model budget is spent" on Activity, and "Your desk is paused because today's AI budget is spent" on the Overview
- What to do
- Wait for midnight CT; the AI cost today tile on Overview shows where you stand, and only the platform operator can raise the budget
A guidance note was not acknowledged, even after the PM was asked once more inside the session
- How it reads
- "The PM did not acknowledge a Guidance note" (Overview)
- What to do
- Reread the note on Strategy › Guidance; reword or retire it
The model provider returned an error, a rate limit or an authentication problem
- How it reads
- "A desk session failed", or "An intraday check was rate-limited by the model provider" with "it retries"
- What to do
- Nothing for a ; report if it persists
The session crashed or the connection closed before a result
- How it reads
- "An intraday check hit an error" (the row names the kind of session), with "it retries if it can" when it can
- What to do
- Same
Nothing was free to start it in its start window (a minute short of the next check, and never more than 20 minutes), or the previous check was still going for the whole window
- How it reads
- "The 12:00 intraday check did not run" (Overview) with the cause and the next check in the line; a check missed while a later one exists today is a note, the day's last one a warning; a slot from an earlier day is closed out on Activity only
- What to do
- Nothing; the next check runs
The platform restarted while a run was in flight
- How it reads
- The run is closed as failed the moment the platform is back (it does not wait out the timeout); a run you asked for from posts that it failed into the thread; an event-driven session gets one more try and, if that fails too, its events are left for the next scheduled session to read, with one line on Activity
- What to do
- Nothing; ask again from Consult if you still want the ad-hoc run. Scheduled sessions carry on
Three things that look like failures but are not. A trimmed output row ("A session note was shortened to fit", naming what was shortened) shows on Inbox › Activity once System events is switched on. It means the session's answer was valid except that a prose field (a summary, a , a journal entry, a handoff bullet) ran past its length cap; the platform cut that text to fit, ending in "[…]", checked the result once more and saved it. A list that runs long (too many thesis reviews, or handoff bullets) is handled the same way: the extra items are cut to the list's cap, the line says which fields were cut and by how much, and the end-of-day review is kept rather than thrown away. Proposals, symbols, quantities and prices are never touched by the trim, and any other defect still fails the whole session ("A desk session's output could not be read"). It is worth a report only if it repeats every day. A refused tool call (the model asked for a tool it may not use) is refused, noted on Activity after the session, and the session continues without it. A that errors or times out never fails the PM: the proposals go ahead with a note saying the Critic did not answer (a proposal that opens a new position or is $250 or more waits at most 150 seconds for the Critic's pre-trade pass, then moves on regardless).
What to do
Nothing is lost. The PM keeps no memory inside a session; everything it needs is stored between sessions, so the next scheduled session (see the day's list on Desk) starts with the same book, the same notes and the same brief as if the failed one had never begun. A failed premarket session means the first intraday session does the day's first look instead.
If you do not want to wait, ask Consult. It gives its own read, and when the question amounts to "should we buy or sell" it offers a PM check card (or press Ask the PM to look now); confirming it runs an ad-hoc PM session now, or puts the question to the next scheduled session, capped at 6 Consult-triggered runs a day.
is not necessary. A failed session cannot have sent anything, and the Executor is unaffected.
When to report
Report when the same failure repeats across sessions, when a session fails every day at the same slot, or when the detail line names something you changed (a note, a model, a budget). Press the flag in the top bar; the you were on is attached, and what you write is read the next morning. One failed session on an otherwise normal day is not worth a report; the already lists it under Alerts & errors and flags it as an .