Autocrat not working? Common errors and what to try

A practical checklist for the Autocrat errors people report most, collected from the public Autocrat Google Group. Most can be fixed without switching tools.

"Too many executions running simultaneously for this Apps Script project"

This limit applies to Autocrat's shared Apps Script project, not your sheet, so nothing on your side fixes it. During the February 2026 outage it cleared after several days. Wait and retry later, and check the Autocrat Google Group for news.

Job stuck on "Starting..." or "Script AutoCrat3.onStart experienced an error"

• Reload the sheet, open Extensions → Autocrat again, and re-run the job.
• Remove and re-add the add-on's authorization at myaccount.google.com/permissions, then authorize again when Autocrat asks.
• Make sure you are signed in to only one Google account in the browser; add-ons often fail with multiple accounts signed in.

"API call to docs.documents.batchUpdate failed" or "Service invoked too many times"

These are Google quota errors. Run smaller batches (a condition column helps), spread runs over the day, and avoid very long templates. Consumer Gmail accounts have lower daily email limits than Workspace accounts.

Tags not replaced

• Tags must match column headers exactly, including spaces, inside << and >>.
• Retype tags that were pasted: hidden formatting can split a tag into pieces Google treats separately.
• Check that the template is a Google Doc or Slides file, not an uploaded Word file.

Form trigger not firing

Open the job's trigger settings and save them again, and check that the sheet owner who set the trigger still has access. Triggers stop when the authorizing account loses access.

Still stuck?

If you need merges running today, TrustyMerge reads the same tags and can import your Autocrat job. (We make TrustyMerge.)