We read every message.

My feed isn't finding the right papers

Almost always, this is the interests paragraph rather than the search. Three things to try, in order:

1. Read your interests back. Account → Research interests. It is the entire input to the ranking, so if it describes work you finished two years ago, that is what you'll get. Write it the way you'd describe your project to a colleague in a different field.
2. Show it a paper it missed. Open a miss diagnosis and paste in a paper you'd have wanted. It replays the run and names the stage that lost it — then proposes the change to your interests that would have caught it.
3. Calibrate. Mark a handful of recent papers good or bad. It will propose edits in writing and show you what each one does to papers you've already judged before you apply anything.

If a paper you care about turns out not to be indexed in PubMed at all, a diagnosis will say so. That one we can't fix from your side — broader sources are on the roadmap.

A run failed, or found nothing

Paper Scout deliberately distinguishes "the search broke" from "the search genuinely found nothing", and shows you which. If you see an error, tap retry — most failures are a busy upstream service and clear on their own.

If a run repeatedly fails, send us the error text and the approximate time and we'll look at the run's journal directly.

A genuinely empty result usually means the window was short and your niche is quiet. Try a longer window before assuming something is broken.

A third case looks like a failure but isn't: if you refresh again too soon, Paper Scout tells you when the next run is due and leaves your current feed alone. Runs are limited to one an hour — five minutes after a failure — and editing your research interests starts one immediately regardless.

Audio won't play

Briefings are generated on request and can take a minute or two the first time. Once generated they're cached on your device and play back instantly.

If playback stops unexpectedly, check that your device isn't restricting background audio for Paper Scout, and that low-power mode isn't suspending it. If it persists, tell us the episode date and roughly where in the audio it stopped.

I'm not getting notifications

Push alerts are still being switched on account by account, so if you're not getting them yet it is more likely to be us than you. Check the toggle in Account first, and your device's notification permission second — then get in touch and we'll tell you where you are in the rollout.

Billing and subscriptions

Paper Scout costs £4.99 a month for Reader, with the first month free, or £9.99 for Unlimited. The difference between them is the number of papers you can have read aloud each week — ten and twenty respectively. The feed, the ranking, the reason on each paper and the weekly briefing are in both and aren't counted.

Subscriptions are sold through the App Store, which means Apple takes the payment and owns the refund decision. You can only subscribe from the iPhone app — there is no way to pay from the Android app or the web yet, though an account subscribed on iPhone works everywhere you sign in. Manage or cancel in Settings → your name → Subscriptions.

We can't issue a store refund ourselves, but tell us what happened and we'll help you ask.

I've run out of audio summaries

The weekly allowance is a rolling seven days, not a calendar week, so nothing resets on a Monday — each summary returns to you seven days after you used it, and the app tells you when the next one is due. Replaying something you've already generated is always free and never counts again, and if a summary fails to generate you don't pay for it.

If you're hitting the limit most weeks, Unlimited doubles it. If you're hitting that, get in touch before assuming the answer is no.

I paid but it says I haven't

Purchases reach us from Apple through RevenueCat, which is usually instant but occasionally lags. First, pull down on the Account screen to re-sync, or tap Restore purchases on the subscribe screen — that asks Apple directly rather than waiting to be told.

If it still doesn't show after a few minutes, email us from the address on the account with the date of purchase, and we'll look it up and fix it by hand. You will not be asked to pay twice.

Deleting your account or your data

In the app: Account → Delete Account. That removes your profile, interests and their history, saved papers and notes, run journals, device tokens and generated audio. Purchase records are kept for accounting purposes, as explained in the privacy policy.

If deletion fails, or you'd rather we did it, email privacy@paperscout.net from your account address and we'll do it by hand within 30 days and confirm when it's done. The same address handles requests for a copy of your data, and requests to turn off analytics for your account.

Cancel any store subscription before deleting your account — deleting the account does not cancel it.

Reporting a security issue

Email security@paperscout.net before disclosing anything publicly. We'll work with you, we'll credit you if you want it, and we will not pursue good-faith research.

Feature requests and feedback

Genuinely welcome, and read by the person who writes the code. The most useful message you can send is a specific example: the paper you wish it had found, the summary that got something wrong, the screen that made no sense. Send it to support@paperscout.net.