Submit a request

Frequently Asked Questions

Error: Multiple accounts detected

First, make sure you are using the Chrome browser. Google add-ons do not work well in other browsers.

Second, make sure you are using only one Google account per Chrome profile.

Solution:

Follow this procedure to create a dedicated Chrome profile
Create a new spreadsheet
Set up your API key in this new spreadsheet
Try a GPT() function again

Error: My OpenAI API free trial is expired or inactive even though I never used it?

If you see this error message, it means your OpenAI free trial is expired or inactive. Please note the ChatGPT Plus subscriptions DO NOT include paid access to the OpenAI platform.

In order to check for sure, please go to the OpenAI playground and try submitting a prompt. If you get an error there, it means your account requires you to set up a paid account in OpenAI.

Solution: set up a paid account on OpenAI dashboard

Note: verifying your account with a phone number that hasn’t been used before is necessary to benefit from a free trial.

Error: Exceeded maximum execution time

OpenAI API servers are usually under extremely heavy load and the response time depends on the model and your account status.

You can track response times of all models on our OpenAI API response time tracker.

If you see this error message, it means your request took more than 30 seconds which is above the limit of Google Sheets functions. It happens more frequently at peak usage time when OpenAI servers are taking a lot of load.

Solutions:

Choose a model with a faster response time (text-davinci-003 is usually much faster)
Try again, outside of peak hours
Use the Google Docs integration if you want to generate longer content such as blog posts

Note that we are working on a definitive fix of this problem, which should be released by the end of May.

Error: Sidebar is blank

In order to troubleshoot the issue, please send us the following information:

Do you use a VPN?
Do you have Ad blockers installed on Chrome?
Can you provide us a screenshot of the javascript console during sidebar loading (see the procedure at the bottom of this email)?
Could you try opening this link in the browser and confirm if the content is correctly loading ? (It should look like source code)
Could you try again in an incognito window?

How to take Javascript console screen:

Launch GPT for Sheets sidebar
Right-click and select Inspect
Once the right window is opened, Select Console tab in the top navigation bar
Scroll down to the end of the console
Take a Screenshot
Do the same on the Network Tab

Error: The menu only shows “help”

Refresh your spreadsheet, wait 30 seconds, then try to launch the add-on again.

Error: Invalid parameter

If you see this error message, make sure that:

You have quotation marks around your prompt if it is not in a cell. This works: =GPT("hello"). This works: =GPT(A1). This doesn't work: =GPT(hello)
You have quotation marks around your model parameter: "text-davinci-003", not text-davinci-003.
You are using the correct number format for temperature for your locale: 0.8 or 0,8
Your arguments are in the correct order. See our reference here

To select a GPT-3 or GPT-4 model in Docs, select the model technical name (e.g. “text-davinci-003” or “gpt-4”) in the models dropdown in the sidebar.

Error: Cannot use GPT-4

The GPT-4 API which this extension uses is currently only available via waitlist. The waitlist can be found here: https://openai.com/waitlist/gpt-4-api.

The ChatGPT Plus subscription DOESN’T cover usage of OpenAI API and so paying for ChatGPT Plus WILL NOT enable you to use GPT-4 in this extension.

In order to check if you have access, you should go to the OpenAI playground and check if you can select the gpt-4 model there.

Note: given how slow GPT-4 is, it is not recommended to use it in Sheets for now.

Error: Exception: Service invoked too many times for one day: urlfetch.

If you see this error message, it means you have reached your daily quota of calls to an external service from Google Sheets.

Quota for gmail.com accounts: 20k / day
Quota for Google Workspace accounts: 100k / day

(subject to arbitrary change by Google).

Solution: wait 24 hours.

Error: 429: Rate limit reached for […] requests per min.

If you see this error message, it means you have reached your limit of requests per minute.

Solution:
Wait one minute then retry.

Long-term solution:
Set up a payment method on OpenAI dashboard in order to increase your rate limit: https://platform.openai.com/account/billing/overview. It will be increased to 3500 requests per minute after 48 hours.

Error: #NAME? Unknown function: 'GPT' or 'gpt’

If you see this error message, it means you have not enabled the GPT functions.

Solution: Click Extensions > GPT for Sheets and Docs > Launch sidebar

If you do not see GPT for Sheets and Docs in the Extensions menu, it means you have not installed the extension on the account you’re using.

How to set up my API key?

From Google Sheets:

Click Extensions > GPT for Sheets and Docs > Launch sidebar
The sidebar will appear on the right of the screen
Paste your secret key where indicated, click Next
You can now try typing =GPT("say hi") in a cell and get a response from GPT

From Google Docs:

Click Extensions > GPT for Sheets and Docs > Set API Key
Paste your secret key where indicated, save the changes
You can now launch the sidebar (Extensions > GPT for Sheets and Docs > Launch sidebar) and start using GPT from Google Docs

Get more detailed instructions here.

Which browsers are compatible with GPT for Sheets and Docs?

Chrome (highly recommended)
Firefox
Windows only: Microsoft Edge
Mac only: Safari

Other browsers may not work.

I have a ChatGPT Plus subscription, why do I need to set up a paid OpenAI account?

Unfortunately ChatGPT Plus subscriptions do not include paid access to OpenAI APIs or to the OpenAI playground.

You will have to set up a paid account in the OpenAI platform dashboard even if you have a ChatGPT Plus subscription.