In short
Scan it and see where you land. A page from the QR code company saying the code is not active means the plan behind it ended. Your own website saying “page not found” means the page moved. Nothing happening at all means a printing problem: printed too small, too pale, or with its clear border cut into.
1. The plan behind the code ended
What you see: the scan opens the QR code company’s own page instead of yours, saying the code is not active, or asking its owner to sign in or pay. A code that counts its scans is a dynamic code: it holds the company’s short link, and the company forwards each scan only while the account behind it is active. When that account’s plan ends, and any grace period has passed, the forwarding stops. Subscription services work this way, QRVane included.
What to do: sign in to the account that made the code and subscribe to a plan with room for it. With QRVane, that brings back every code the plan keeps live at once, with nothing reprinted; another service’s terms say whether it does the same. If you would rather leave a service, the fix is a new code and a reprint, so export your scan data first.
2. The page it opens has gone
What you see: your own website opens, but says “page not found”. The code is fine; the page it names has moved or been deleted, often in a website redesign.
What to do: with a dynamic code, change its destination to the new page; every printed copy follows from the next scan. With a code that holds your website’s address directly, put a page back at the old address, or ask whoever runs the website to forward the old address to the new page. Changing a QRVane code is a minute’s work: how to change where a code points.
3. It does not scan at all
What you see: the camera never offers a link. This is a printing problem, and it is usually one of these:
- Printed too small for where it is. A code on a poster people read from across a room has to be bigger than one on a table card. If a code works in your hand and not on the wall, print it larger.
- Too little contrast. Dark squares on a light background read best. Pale grey, or two colours of similar brightness, fail first.
- No clear border. The pattern needs a plain margin on every side. A frame, text or the edge of a sticker cutting into it can stop it reading.
- Light on dark. Some phones cannot read a code with light squares on a dark background. Test inverted codes on several phones, or print dark on light.
- Glare or a curve. Gloss lamination, a bottle or a curved cup can bend or hide part of the pattern. Matt finishes and flat surfaces read best.
- Too big a logo. A logo covers squares the code needs. Keep it small and in the middle, and test the printed code before you print a batch.
The QRVane designer will not let you make a code that fails these: it keeps the border, picks a caption colour that reads, raises the error correction when you add a logo, and adjusts a colour pair that is too close to scan. It also reads your design back with an independent decoder before it tells you the code scans.
4. It works on one phone but not another
Most phone cameras read QR codes; if one does not, a scanner app will. Old phones and cracked or smudged lenses struggle with small codes first, so a code that is barely big enough reads for some people and not others. Print it larger.
If it is a QRVane code
What the scanner sees tells you which state the code is in:
- This code is not active. The code's 14 days ran out and its workspace has no plan with room for it (those 14 days have no grace period after them); or a subscription's 14-day grace period has passed; or the workspace's owner has asked for their account to be deleted, for the 30 days before it goes for good. A code stopped that way comes back when the account is restored, not by subscribing.
- This code was blocked. The code was found to break the acceptable use policy (phishing, malware, a scam, illegal content or someone else’s rights), by our screening or from a report a person read.
- This code no longer exists. The owner deleted the code, or its workspace was deleted for good with its owner’s account.
- We can’t look this code up. For a moment, our database cannot be reached.
A code that is not active usually reached the end of its 14 days with no plan behind it, or belongs to a subscription that ended. Subscribing brings back, at once, every code the plan keeps live. A code's scans can be exported as CSV at every stage: in its first 14 days, in a grace period and after it stops. If we cannot look a code up for a moment, the scanner is asked to try again, and is never told the code does not exist. The full table is on the pricing page.