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Question 1

I'm not getting any emails

Accepted Answer

Nine times out of ten the email did arrive, but it landed in spam or in the promotions tab. Open your spam folder (on some phones it's called “Junk”). If you use Gmail, open the Promotions tab too. Search for the word bjjsquare across your whole mailbox, not only the inbox. Wait 5 minutes and check again: sometimes the email arrives late. If you mistyped your email address, the site doesn't tell you: it shows the “Check your email” message anyway. For a password reset go back to Forgot your password and type the address again, slowly. For a gym claim the email doesn't come to you. It goes to the gym address already on file at BJJ Square. If you can't get into that mailbox, you'll receive nothing: write to info@bjjsquare.com from an official gym address. For the account confirmation email the resend does exist: open Log in, try to get in, and under the “Log in” button the link “Resend the confirmation email” appears. Press it and read the “Done” line that shows above the form. For a gym claim press “Claim gym” again on the gym page: only after 15 minutes and no more than 3 times a day. Only if you already asked for the resend and still have nothing after an hour, write to info@bjjsquare.com.

Question 2

I clicked the link in the email and nothing happened

Accepted Answer

The link has to be opened on the same device and in the same browser where you did the action. If you signed up on a computer and open the email on your phone, the link won't work. Go back to the device where you signed up (or where you asked for a new password). Open your email on that device. Open the link in the same browser you used before: if you used Chrome, open it with Chrome. You should land on the gym map or on the “Set a new password” page. Link already used. Each link works only once. Link expired. The password reset link lasts a short time. The gym claim link lasts 14 days. Antivirus or company filter. Some systems open links for you to check them, and use the link up before you ever touch it. It happens a lot with work email. For your password: go back to Forgot your password and ask for a new link. For a gym claim: open the gym page and press “Claim gym” again. For the account confirmation: the link that fails takes you back to the “Log in” page with a red box. Type your email in the “Email” field, then press “Resend the confirmation email” under the “Log in” button. If it asks you to log in and you already have an account, log in first and then open the link from the email again. Only if the resend does not fix it, write to info@bjjsquare.com with your name and the account email.

Question 3

I can't log in

Accepted Answer

A short message shows up under the form. Here's what each one really means.

Invalid login credentials: the email or the password is wrong.
Email not confirmed: the account exists, but you haven't opened the confirmation link we emailed you.
User already registered: an account with that email already exists. Don't sign up again, log in instead.

Check there are no spaces at the start or the end of your email.
Type the password by hand instead of pasting it.
If you see “Email not confirmed”, open the confirmation link you got by email.
If you no longer have that link, or it does not work, under the “Log in” button you get “Haven't confirmed your email yet?” with the link “Resend the confirmation email”. Press it and wait for the new email.
If you don't remember your password, tap “Forgot your password?” under the “Log in” button.
Type your email and press “Send reset link”.
Open the link from the email and pick a new password, at least 6 characters.

Note: If the “Log in” button stays grey and won't press, that's a different problem: read The button won't click.

Careful: If you still can't get in after the password reset, write to info@bjjsquare.com with the account email and the exact message you see.

Question 4

The button won't click, it stays greyed out

Accepted Answer

A grey button means something in the form is still missing. Scroll through the whole form from top to bottom and look for empty fields. On sign-up, fill in “Full name”, “Email” and “Password”. The password must be at least 6 characters. Tick the box “By signing up you accept our Privacy Policy and Terms of Service”. Look above the button for an anti-robot box and wait for it to turn green. The anti-robot check comes from an outside service. If an ad blocker or your office network blocks it, the box never loads and the button stays grey forever, without telling you anything. It's the most common cause. Turn off your ad blocker (adblock) on this site and reload the page. If the box still doesn't show up, try another browser (Chrome instead of Safari, for example). If you're at the office, at the gym or at school, turn off wi-fi and use your phone's mobile data. Reload the page and try again. If the button is still grey after all this, write to info@bjjsquare.com and tell us which browser and which phone you're using.

Question 5

I'm getting a weird error message I don't understand

Accepted Answer

It's a known problem and we're fixing it. Those messages come from the system underneath and aren't written in plain language yet. Invalid login credentials — the email or the password is wrong. Email not confirmed — you still have to open the confirmation link you got by email. User already registered — an account with this email already exists: log in instead of signing up. Password should be at least 6 characters — the password must be at least 6 characters long. For security purposes, you can only request this after… — you tried again too soon: wait a few minutes. duplicate key value violates unique constraint — something you typed is already used by another person: almost always the username. Failed to fetch or Load failed — the connection dropped: check your network and try again. Look for your message in the list above. Follow what it says and try again. If your message isn't in the list, take a screenshot. Send the screenshot to info@bjjsquare.com and tell us what you were doing. It also helps us decide which messages to rewrite first.

Question 6

The map is blank and won't load

Accepted Answer

The map comes from an outside service. If that service doesn't load, you're left with a blank space. Reload the page. Check you have a connection: open another site and see if it opens. Turn off your ad blocker (adblock) on this site and reload. If you're on the office, gym or school network, turn off wi-fi and use your phone's mobile data. If nothing works, tap “List” at the top: you see the same gyms as a list, without the map. Company and school networks often block the services that draw the map. When that happens the “List” view still works, and it's the fastest way to search. On a very old browser the map may never work. Update your browser to the latest version available on your phone.

Question 7

I can't see any gyms on the map

Accepted Answer

Almost always it's a filter left on from an earlier search. Look at the “Filters” button at the top: if there's a red dot with a number next to it, you have filters on. Tap “Filters” to open the panel. Tap “Clear filters” at the bottom of the panel. Empty the search box “Search by name or city…” too. Under the filters read the count: it tells you how many gyms you're looking at. In “Map” view nothing warns you when the filters find nothing: you only see an empty map. Tap “List” at the top: there you get “No gyms found” with the “Reset filters” button. The map opens on the whole world: the markers are little circles with a number inside. Zoom in on your area with two fingers, or with the “+” button at the top left. Keep zooming until the circles open up into single red dots. If you pick a country in the filters, the map does not move by itself to that country. You have to move it by hand. The “List” view is easier.

Question 8

I can't find my gym

Accepted Answer

We keep this answer in one place only, so it always stays up to date. You will find it here:

Question 9

My gym does not have the Verified check

Accepted Answer

Two things have to be true together: the gym is claimed by you, and the profile is at least 70 points. Try opening the gym dashboard. If you cannot open it, the gym is not claimed yet: start there. If you can, read the box at the top: it says how many points are missing. Follow the checklist below and save every tab you touch. If you have just entered the address, check that you pressed “Save changes” in the “Info & Contacts” tab. Without saving, those 20 points do not arrive. The breakdown of the points is in How do I get the Verified check. There is no request to send us: the score updates by itself.

Question 10

I hit save but nothing was saved

Accepted Answer

There are two different cases, and one of them is a bug on our side. First case: your profile. The “Profile”, “Tatami” and “Competitions” tabs save one at a time. If you type something in one tab and move to another without saving, what you wrote is lost and nobody warns you. Fill in the fields of one tab at a time. Scroll to the bottom of the page. Press “Save changes”. Wait until you see the green “✓ Saved” on the button. Only then switch tab. Second case: you're a co-owner of a gym. In the “Info & Contacts” and “Programs & schedule” tabs the “Save changes” button turns into “Saved!”, but the changes are not actually recorded. It's a known bug and we're fixing it. Ask the gym's primary owner to make those two changes from their own account. In the meantime you can save logo and photos, class schedule, instructors, events, board and students normally. To find out who the primary owner is, open the “Owners” tab in the gym management: next to their name it says “Primary”.

Question 11

I changed my photo but I still see the old one

Accepted Answer

The new photo has been uploaded. Your phone keeps the old one in memory for a while, though, and carries on showing you that. Wait an hour and check again. If you're in a hurry, close the browser completely and open it again. Reload your profile page. If you still see the old one, open the site in a private browsing window: there you see the new one right away. Other people see the new photo even while you carry on seeing the old one. If the photo won't upload at all and an error comes up, the problem is the format. Photos taken with an iPhone are often HEIC and get rejected. We accept only JPG, PNG and WebP, up to 5 MB. On iPhone open “Settings”, then “Camera”, then “Formats”. Choose “Most Compatible”: from then on new photos are JPG. For a photo you already took, open it in the Photos app and use “Edit”, then save: that often converts it. Or send the photo to yourself on WhatsApp and download it again: WhatsApp converts it to JPG.

Question 12

I get a huge error message when I save my profile

Accepted Answer

If a long line comes up under the fields, almost always the username you picked is already used by someone else. You can tell because it contains the words duplicate key or unique constraint. Go back to the top of the page, to the “Profile” tab. Find the “Username” field. Pick a different name, for example by adding your city or the year: mario_bjj_milano. You can use only lowercase letters, numbers and the underscore. Scroll to the bottom and press “Save changes”. Wait for the green “✓ Saved”. Your username is also used for your public profile and to let your coach find you. Pick one that's easy to say out loud. If the error says something else, take a screenshot and send it to info@bjjsquare.com.

Question 13

I can't find where to set my belt

Accepted Answer

Your belt lives in the “Tatami” tab of your profile. The name doesn't help: it's normal not to find it. Open the menu by tapping your photo at the top right. Tap “My profile”. At the top you see a row of tabs: “Profile”, “Tatami”, “Promotions”, “Competitions”, “Settings”, “Card”. Tap “Tatami”. The first section is called “Belt”: tap the colour you need. Below it, pick the number of stripes, from 0 to 4. Scroll to the bottom and press “Save changes”. The green “✓ Saved” comes up. On a black belt you get “Degrees” instead of stripes, from 0 to 6. From the 7th on you move to the coral belt, which you pick among the colours. In the same “Tatami” tab you also find “Start year”, “Weight category (IBJJF)” and “Home academy”. They're used for badges and for check-in. “Promotions” is a different thing: that's where you write the history of the belts you've earned over the years, not the one you wear now.

Question 14

I asked for belt verification and nobody replied

Accepted Answer

First of all, send the single request to your coach: “Tatami” tab, “Coach confirmation” section, “Request confirmation” button. He gets a notification and with three check boxes he confirms membership, belt and coach in one go. If you changed anything on the tab, press “Save changes” before asking: what gets sent is the saved version, not what you see on screen. The other button, “Request a check”, alerts the BJJ Square admins and not your coach. If that is the one you pressed, your coach never got anything. There is also a shortcut, if your coach is right there with you: he can set your belt directly from the gym dashboard, and at that moment it counts as verified. Open the “Tatami” tab of your profile. In the “Home academy” field search for your gym and pick it. Press “Save changes” and wait for the “✓ Saved” message. Tell your coach to open the gym management and the “Students” tab. Tell them to find you in the list and tap the gear next to your name. In the window that opens they pick belt and degrees and press “Save belt”. From that moment a green verified tick shows next to your belt. If you change your belt yourself after asking for verification, the “Request a check” button may not come back: in its place you're left with “Check request sent to the admins”. It's a known bug. In that case have your coach do the promotion, or write to us. If your coach isn't on BJJ Square, write to info@bjjsquare.com with your username, your belt and the name of your gym. There's a third way, if your coach has already confirmed you in the “Promotions” tab: from their profile they can log your belt and tick “Also update the student's current belt”. It comes through verified all the same, and you get the alert in your Notifications too. Don't mix this up with promotions: that's another page and another mechanism. If you're waiting for your coach to confirm a promotion, see the entry below.

Question 15

I asked my coach to confirm and nobody replied

Accepted Answer

This covers two different things: the “Current coach” in the “Tatami” tab and the rows in the “Promotions” tab. In both cases the request stays “Pending” until your coach touches it. Your coach gets nothing on their phone and no email. They only get an alert inside the site. If they never open BJJ Square, the request sits there for months. The way out is almost always the same: tell them yourself, in person or on WhatsApp. Then explain where they have to go. They tap their photo at the top right and choose “My profile”. In the row of tabs they tap “Promotions”. At the top they find the “To confirm” box with your name in it. They press the green “Confirm” button. The row leaves their box and on your profile the label turns green. If your coach has no BJJ Square account, they can't confirm anything and that's not a fault. Go back to the “Tatami” tab, tap “Change” next to their name and type it again in the free field “Or type your coach's name”. It shows on your profile all the same, only without the tick. If they say they pressed “Confirm” but you still see “Pending”, reload the page. If nothing changes after a few hours, write to info@bjjsquare.com with your username and your coach's name. A pending request doesn't block anything. Profile, check-in, points, badges and card all work the same.

Question 16

I pre-registered a student but they stay as waiting

Accepted Answer

The link looks at the email, and it has to be exactly the one you typed. If the student signs up with a different one, the two never meet. Open the “Pre-register your students” box and read the email again: one wrong letter is enough. Ask the student which email they signed up with. If it is a different one, delete the line and redo it with the right email. Someone who already signed up with another email does not have to redo their account: from their profile, in the “Tatami” tab, they pick your gym under “Home academy”, save, and then send you the request from “Coach confirmation”. You confirm it from your notifications. If you try to pre-register an email already in your list, the site tells you (“A pre-registered student with this email already exists”) and does not create the duplicate. Remember that pre-registered students get no email from BJJ Square. If the person does not know they have to sign up, the line stays waiting forever.

Question 17

I added a competition result and it's stuck on “Pending”

Accepted Answer

When you add a result nobody is told. No email and no notification goes out: it sits there marked “Pending” until someone looks at it. Only the owner of your home gym, or a BJJ Square admin, can verify it. Open the “Profile” tab and check you have a “Username”. With no username your coach can't open your page. Open the “Tatami” tab and check the “Home academy” field: your gym has to be in there. Press “Save changes” at the bottom of each tab you touched. Tell your coach yourself, in person or on WhatsApp, that you've added a result. Tell them to open your athlete page and press “Verify” next to the result. The result stays visible on your profile even while it's “Pending”. It counts for the “Competition Debut” badge all the same. If your gym isn't on BJJ Square yet, or nobody manages it, write to info@bjjsquare.com with the name of the tournament, the date and your division.

Question 18

I can't find the check-in button

Accepted Answer

We keep this answer in one place only, so it always stays up to date. You will find it here:

Question 19

I checked in by mistake

Accepted Answer

We keep this answer in one place only, so it always stays up to date. You will find it here:

Question 20

My badge won't unlock even though I've met the requirements

Accepted Answer

Badges don't update on their own in real time. They're recalculated every time you open the “Badges & points” page. Open the menu by tapping your photo at the top right. Tap “Badges & points”. Wait a few seconds for the page to finish loading. If the badge still hasn't unlocked, reload the page a second time. The “On The Mat” badge (complete profile) asks for three exact things, all in the “Tatami” tab of your profile: “Home academy”, “Start year” and “Weight category (IBJJF)”. If even one is missing, it stays locked. Some badges can't be unlocked at all today, because the feature behind them doesn't exist yet. Those are the seminar ones, the review one (“Voice of the Mat”), the ones for classes taught (“First Professor”, “Professor Regular”, “Master Teacher”) and “Home Mat” for 2 years at the same gym. Historic and seniority badges (“Established Blue”, “5 Year Veteran” and the like) don't come from training: your coach awards them from the gym management. If your belt is verified or you run a gym, you can ask for them yourself with the “Claim” button on the badge.

Question 21

The “Near me” and “Region” buttons on events are greyed out

Accepted Answer

Those buttons filter events by where you are. Until the site knows where you are, they stay grey and won't press. Open the Events page. Next to the buttons tap “Use current location”. When the browser asks for permission, answer “Allow”. Under the buttons you should see the line “Based on your current location”. Now “Near me” and “Region” can be pressed. Or set your home gym instead: open the “Tatami” tab of your profile, fill in “Home academy” and press “Save changes”. From then on events are filtered starting from your gym, with no location permission needed. If you answered “Don't Allow” in the past, the browser never asks again and the button seems to do nothing. You have to turn the permission back on by hand. iPhone (Safari): open “Settings”, then “Safari”, then “Location” and choose “Ask”. Then open “Settings”, “Privacy & Security”, “Location Services” and check that Safari is on. Android (Chrome): open Chrome on the site, tap the lock to the left of the address, then “Permissions” and turn on “Location”. After changing the setting, reload the events page and try again. On the Gyms page “near me” does not exist: it's only in Events. To find gyms near you, use the country, region and province filters.

Question 22

I don't get any notifications on my phone

Accepted Answer

BJJ Square doesn't send notifications to your phone and doesn't send notifications by email. It isn't a setting you got wrong: they don't exist at all. In Settings, “Email notifications” is marked “soon” and doesn't work today. Every alert lives inside the site, on the “Notifications” page: co-owner invites, announcements from your gym, belt verified. Open the menu by tapping your photo at the top right. Look next to “Notifications”: if there's a number, you have alerts to read. Tap “Notifications” to open the list. Check the page now and then: it's the only place they arrive. The number next to “Notifications” goes back to zero as soon as you open the page, even if you read nothing. The notifications stay in the list though: scroll down to read them again. If you're waiting for an answer on a belt verification or a competition result, check your profile directly: there you see right away whether anything changed.

Question 23

The app I installed doesn't work, I get an error page

Accepted Answer

BJJ Square isn't an app you download from the store: it's the site added to your phone's home screen. To work it always needs a connection. Check you have signal: open another site or send a message. If you're at the gym and the signal is weak, turn off wi-fi and use mobile data. Close the app completely and open it again from the icon. If you still get the error page, open bjjsquare.com in your normal browser: if it works there, the problem was only the connection. There is no offline mode. If you're in a basement with no signal, you can't check in: you'll check in later, but only within the same day. The app always stays upright: if you turn your phone, the screen doesn't rotate. It's on purpose, it isn't a fault. On iPhone the install works only from Safari, not from Chrome. Open bjjsquare.com with Safari. Tap the share button at the bottom, the one with the arrow pointing up. Scroll and tap “Add to Home Screen”. The icon comes up among your apps.

Question 24

The site is in the wrong language

Accepted Answer

You change the language from the picker at the top right, the one with the languages symbol and the country code (EN, for example). Look at the top right, near your photo or the “Log in” button. Tap the symbol with the two letters (EN, IT, ES…). Choose “English” from the list that opens. The page reloads in the language you picked. On small screens the picker isn't visible right away. Tap the menu button with the three lines at the top right: the row of languages is at the bottom of the menu. Your choice is remembered for later visits too, on that phone and in that browser. The Privacy, Terms and Cookie pages exist only in Italian and English. If you picked Spanish, Portuguese, French or German, you'll see those three pages in English.

Question 25

Nobody replies to my training partner listing

Accepted Answer

In “Find partners” there is no chat. You can't send messages inside the site. Anyone who wants to contact you has to go through the socials you put on your profile. If there's no social on your profile, nobody can write to you: your listing is a dead end. Open the “Profile” tab of your profile. Fill in the “Username” field: with no username your page doesn't even open and you stay unreachable. Fill in at least one of “Instagram”, “Facebook”, “TikTok” and “YouTube”. You can write either @username or the full profile address. Scroll to the bottom and press “Save changes”. Wait for the green “✓ Saved”. Open Find partners and check that tapping your card opens your profile. The phone number and the email you put in your profile are not shown to other people. Only the socials are visible. Listings expire after 30 days and disappear with no warning. If yours is gone, go back to Find partners and post it again with “Post listing”.

Question 26

How do I contact you if none of this works

Accepted Answer

Write to info@bjjsquare.com. The development team reads the reports, one by one. To help us get it first time, put these things in the email. Out of order is fine, a few words is fine: what matters is that they're there. What you were doing. Example: I was saving my belt in my profile. What you expected. Example: I thought the “✓ Saved” message would come up. What happened instead. Example: a red line came up. The page address. Copy it from the bar at the top of your browser and paste it in the email. What phone or computer you use. Example: iPhone 12, or a Windows computer. What browser you use. Example: Safari, Chrome, Firefox. A screenshot, if you can take one: it's worth a thousand words. Add your username or the account email too: without those we can't look up your case. Go to the Contribute page From the Contribute page you can open a ready-made email, with the list of things to write: you only have to fill it in. Use it for ideas and improvements too. We can't promise to fix everything straight away, but we do reply, and we give priority to what blocks the most people.

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