This guide is for individuals going through a Persona-powered identity verification flow. While we’ve included helpful tips, the verification was set up by the business, service, or organization that asked you to verify. They use Persona as a tool, and they ultimately decide what’s required and can assist with your specific situation, if you’re having trouble.
What this screen is
This is the general purpose error. It appears when a step could not finish and the verification flow has nothing more specific to show you. It is not a decision about your identity or your document, and on its own it does not mean you failed anything.
Because it covers several different situations, the fix is to rule them out in order rather than to read anything into the wording.
Work through it in this order
- Wait a moment and tap try again. A single request that did not complete is the most common cause, and a second attempt often goes straight through.
- Check your connection. Move somewhere with better signal. If you are on Wi-Fi that keeps dropping, switch to mobile data, or the other way around.
- Turn off Low Power Mode and charge the phone if it is low. Battery saving can cut a capture off partway.
- Close other apps that use the camera, such as video calling or another camera app, then return to the flow.
- Reload the page, or close and reopen the app, and pick the flow up again from the link the business sent you.
- Restart your phone if it has been running for a long time. This clears the case where the camera or the chip reader has stopped responding.
If it appears at the same step every time
An error that lands in the same place is usually about that step rather than about the flow. Go to the article for that step:
- Photographing an ID: How to take a photo the scan can read
- Scanning a passport chip: My NFC scan starts and then fails
- The selfie: The selfie step keeps asking me to try again
- Sending a file: I cannot upload my document
Before you give up on the attempt
Use the X or the cancel option inside the Persona experience rather than force quitting. That records the error, which is what the business needs if you ask them for help. Then tell them the step you were on and the exact words you saw.