---
title: "Gotchas & Tips"
description: "Common pitfalls and things worth knowing — approval queues, visibility, captcha, accounts, credits, and more."
---

> Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.taverncozy.com/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Gotchas & Tips

A handful of things trip people up. None are bugs — but knowing them saves a head-scratch.

## Accounts & login

- **Passkeys need an existing account.** You can't create an account *with* a passkey. Sign in with Google or email first, then add a passkey from **Profile → Passkeys**.
- **The captcha is real.** Email/username sign-in requires completing a Cloudflare Turnstile check. If the box never appears, an ad-blocker is hiding it — allow Cloudflare and reload.
- **You can be signed into multiple accounts at once.** Add another account from the user menu or the `/login` welcome screen. The newly added account becomes active; switch back from the user menu. Up to 5 sessions per device.
- **Signing into the same account again** while already signed in creates an extra session for it — you'll see it twice in the account switcher. That's expected.
- **Usernames are permanent-ish.** They're public, unique, and validated (3–44 chars, starts with a letter). Display names are the flexible part.

## Characters

- **Public edits go through review.** Editing a *public, approved* character queues a pending version — your change isn't live until a moderator approves it. Private/unlisted edits apply immediately.
- **New characters start private.** Even if you imported a card that says public, double-check the visibility toggle after import.
- **"Name is required."** A character needs a non-blank name on create, edit, and bulk import. Blank names are rejected with an error per item in bulk uploads.
- **NSFW is a flag, not an auto-tag.** It's a checkbox on the character. Content policy on mobile excludes non-approved and NSFW-flagged characters from the mobile browse.
- **Banned tags are rejected.** If a tag is banned, saving fails with a message naming the tag — remove it and retry.
- **Deleting is permanent.** Deleting a character removes its versions, favorites, comments, and views. There's no undo.
- **Imported avatars from bulk uploads are downloaded for you**; a failed download falls back to no avatar rather than breaking the import.

## Chat & memory

- **Memory is best-effort.** Chat memory (via the memory system) ingests conversations asynchronously. Right after a chat, past-message recall can be empty or lag briefly; it fills in as processing completes.
- **Lorebook keys are literal.** Unless you enable regex, an entry's key is a plain string match — "fire" won't match "fiery". Case sensitivity is a per-entry toggle.
- **Personas and characters are separate.** The persona is *your* side; the character is the other side. They don't cross-contaminate.

## Credits & image generation

- **Higher quality costs more.** Resolution, high-thinking mode, and web search each add to the per-image cost. The estimate is shown before you generate.
- **Some models need a subscription.** A model tagged as premium requires an active Premium plan regardless of your credit balance.
- **Credits reset monthly, overage doesn't.** Your base allowance refills; purchased overage credit carries over until spent.

## Maintenance & changes

- **Character creation can be paused.** During maintenance, creating characters returns a notice instead of a form. Your existing characters are unaffected.
- **Things change fast.** Tavern is actively developed — if a setting or page here disagrees with what you see, the app is newer than the docs.

Source: https://docs.taverncozy.com/gotchas/index.mdx