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A recipe didn't import — what now?

Most imports succeed. When one doesn’t, the failure is usually in one of three buckets: the source isn’t accessible, the AI extracted wrong content, or the import succeeded but data is missing.

Symptom: “Could not extract a recipe from this URL”

This means Forktastic fetched the page but couldn’t find recipe content.

Likely causes and fixes:

  1. The page requires login. If the recipe is behind a paywall or member area, Forktastic can’t access it. Try Import from the in-app browser — that lets you log in inside Forktastic before importing.

  2. The URL points to a category page or homepage, not a specific recipe. Open the URL in your browser; if you see a list of multiple recipes, click into the one you want and use that URL.

  3. The page is image-only with no text recipe. A photo blog post or social media image without a caption-recipe can’t be extracted. Try Import from a photo instead and capture the image directly.

  4. The site uses unusual recipe formatting. Some sites bury recipes in custom widgets the AI doesn’t recognize. Fallback: copy the recipe text from the page and use Import from text.

Symptom: imported the wrong recipe (from a page with multiple)

If the page had multiple recipes and the AI picked the wrong one:

  1. Open the page in your browser.
  2. Find the specific recipe you want and look for its individual link or anchor (usually the recipe title is a link).
  3. Copy that specific link.
  4. Retry import with the narrower URL.

If the recipes don’t have individual URLs, you’ll need to extract manually:

  1. Copy the recipe text from the page.
  2. Use Import from text to paste just the one you want.

Symptom: import succeeded but ingredients are wrong

The AI got the title and instructions right but ingredients are mangled (wrong quantities, missing items, units off).

Fix: edit the recipe directly.

  1. Open the imported recipe.
  2. Tap Edit in the action bar.
  3. Compare the ingredients to the original source.
  4. Fix mistakes: tap each ingredient → adjust quantity, unit, name.
  5. Tap Save.

Most extraction issues are 1–2 ingredients out of 10–15. Spending 60 seconds correcting is usually faster than trying a different import method.

Symptom: instructions are mangled or out of order

Less common, but possible if the source had non-standard step formatting:

  1. Open the imported recipe → Edit.
  2. Scroll to instructions.
  3. Drag steps up/down to reorder. Edit text in each step.
  4. Add or remove steps as needed.
  5. Save.

Symptom: nutrition is missing or seems wrong

Nutrition is calculated from the ingredient list. If ingredients are right but nutrition seems off:

  1. Check that each ingredient has a quantity and unit that’s recognizable. “A handful of basil” isn’t quantified and won’t contribute to nutrition.
  2. For each unparseable ingredient, edit it to use a quantity (“1/4 cup basil”) and a standard unit.
  3. Open More → Recalculate nutrition to rerun the calculation.

Symptom: import was charged against my 5-recipe free limit but failed

If an import failed (no recipe created) but you got charged against your free-tier quota, that’s a bug — please report it via Options → Suggest a feature with the source URL.

If the import created a partial/bad recipe (so it does count as one of your 5), you can delete it: open the recipe → More → Delete. The deletion doesn’t free up the quota slot for the current period, but it doesn’t keep eating quota either.

Symptom: TikTok / Instagram video import takes forever and fails

Video extraction is slower than text. Most extractions take 15–30 seconds; longer for long videos.

Common failure modes:

  • Private account video — Forktastic can’t fetch a video from a private TikTok / Instagram account. The poster has to make it public, or you need to be following them.
  • Video taken down — the source was deleted between when you got the link and when you tried to import.
  • Video has no caption and the audio is unclear — extraction fails because there’s not enough signal.

Workaround: copy text from the video’s caption (if any) and use Import from text.

Symptom: Paprika import won’t accept the file

The Paprika file picker rejects your .paprikarecipes file.

Likely causes:

  • Old Paprika version: Forktastic supports Paprika 3’s export format. Older exports may need re-exporting from a current Paprika version.
  • File is empty / 0 KB: open it on your computer, confirm it has content; if not, re-export from Paprika.
  • Wrong file type: make sure it’s .paprikarecipes, not a Paprika sync file (which has a different extension and structure).

See Import recipes from Paprika for the export step.

Get help

If none of these helps, email support@forktastic.com with:

  • The source URL (if URL import)
  • A description of what went wrong
  • A screenshot if useful
  • Your Forktastic account email so we can look up the import attempt

Most cases resolve same-day.