Resolving site vitals warnings on your dashboard

In short. Open your SGEN admin dashboard and look at the Site Vitals card. If it shows a "Scan in progress" banner that has not moved in more than 30 minutes — no spinner, no page counter advancing — the scan is stuck. Click the Cancel link on the banner, confirm in the dialog, then hard-reload the page. The banner clears and the card returns to showing your last completed result. Optionally click Run a new scan to get a fresh reading. That is the whole flow. Use this page when you need the detail — "is it stuck or just slow?", "will I lose data?", "what if clearing it doesn't work?" — all answered below.

On this page: What this covers · Steps — clearing a stuck banner · What success looks like · Troubleshooting · Examples · Recognising patterns

What is this for?

When you log into your SGEN admin, the top of your dashboard shows a small Site Vitals card with a coloured status — green when everything is fine, amber when there is a slow page or a soft warning, red when something needs your attention. SGEN runs a background check every so often to populate that card. While a check is running, the card shows a "Scan in progress" banner so you know the numbers may shift in a moment.

Sometimes a customer will see that "Scan in progress" banner stuck on the dashboard even when no scan is running. That happens when a previous check was interrupted — maybe you closed the tab while it was working, or your wifi blinked, or you logged out before it finished. The banner is not a real warning about your site; it is a leftover marker from the interrupted check. This page walks you through clearing it so your dashboard returns to its normal state and the next check can run cleanly.

You will also use this same page when you genuinely had a vitals warning, fixed the underlying issue (slow page, broken redirect, expired certificate, etc.), and want to acknowledge the warning so it stops showing on the dashboard until the next scheduled check.

Scope

This page covers two specific states on the Site Vitals card on your dashboard:

Clearing the banner does not fix the underlying issue the warning reported. It is the acknowledgement step after you have already fixed the problem (slow page, missing alt text, expired certificate). The fix itself happens in the relevant admin area: Pages for slow pages, Media for oversized images, Settings for domain or certificate issues.

This page does not cover: reading what the four vitals scores mean (see Reading your site vitals), running a fresh scan (covered in the steps below), or resolving specific performance issues (see the Media, Custom Codes, and Appearance docs for those fixes).

Use cases

• You opened the admin this morning and there is a "Scan in progress" banner that has been there since yesterday — clear it so the next scheduled check can start cleanly.
• You had a real warning ("Slow page detected on /shop/canvas-tote-bag"), fixed the page, and want the banner to acknowledge the fix so it does not keep nagging.
• You ran a manual scan, the scan finished successfully, but the in-progress banner did not auto-dismiss the way it normally does — clear it manually.
• You closed the admin tab while a scan was running and now the banner is stuck — drop it so a fresh scan can run later today.
• You handed admin access to a colleague and they saw a stale warning from before they had access — give them a clean dashboard.

What NOT to use this for

• Not for fixing the underlying problem. Clearing the banner is the acknowledgement step. If your site is genuinely slow or has broken links, you still need to fix those issues separately.
• Not for hiding a current, in-progress scan. If you started a scan thirty seconds ago and it is still working, give it a few minutes. Only clear banners that have been there for hours or longer with no progress.
• Not for other dashboard banners. Trial expiring, billing reminders, and version-upgrade notices each have their own dismiss links.
• Not for pausing future scheduled scans. Clearing the in-progress flag does not change your scan schedule.
• Not for clearing customer-facing messages. This affects only your admin dashboard view; nothing on the public site changes.

How this connects to other features

• Site Vitals card — the visual surface this page works with. Clearing a stuck banner returns the card to its idle state so the next check can update it cleanly.
• Site Vitals report — the full breakdown of every page checked. After clearing a stuck banner, the next scheduled scan repopulates the report. Find it under Dashboard then "View full vitals report".
• Pages — when vitals reports a slow page, the link in the warning takes you straight to that page in the Pages area so you can edit and re-check.
• Redirects — when vitals reports a broken redirect, clearing the warning is the acknowledgement step after you fix the redirect entry under Settings then Redirects.
• Maintenance Mode — if you turn on maintenance mode while a vitals scan is running, the scan will stall and produce a stuck banner. Clearing the banner is the cleanup step after you finish your maintenance window.

Before you start

Before you click anything, take a quick look at the banner itself. Two things tell you it is genuinely stuck (and safe to clear) versus working:

1. How long has it been there? A real scan finishes within a couple of minutes for small sites and within ten or fifteen minutes for very large sites. If the banner has been up for more than thirty minutes, it is stuck.
2. Is there any progress indicator? A live scan shows a small spinning indicator and an updating "Checked 23 of 47 pages" counter. A stuck banner shows the static "Scan in progress" label with no movement.

If both signals point to "stuck," it is safe to clear. If you are still unsure — wait fifteen minutes, refresh the dashboard, and look again. A genuinely-running scan will have made visible progress in that time.

You will not lose any data when you clear a stuck banner. The previous vitals results stay visible. The only thing that goes away is the in-progress marker.

Where to go

The vitals card with its in-progress banner appears on the main admin dashboard. From the left navigation:

Dashboard

That is it — no sub-menu, no settings tab. The Site Vitals card is one of the first things you see at the top of the dashboard view, alongside the visitor counter and the recent-orders summary.

If you do not see a Site Vitals card at all, your account may not have vitals enabled. Some plans include vitals checks; some do not. If yours does not and you would like it, that is a billing-side change rather than something you toggle on the dashboard.

Steps — clearing a stuck "Scan in progress" banner

1. Open your dashboard

Log into your SGEN admin and go to the main dashboard. The Site Vitals card sits near the top, on the left side of the dashboard layout in most themes.

If the banner is still there, you will see a small "Cancel" or "Dismiss" link on the banner itself — usually styled as a small grey link in the top-right of the banner area.

2. Click the Cancel link on the banner

A confirmation prompt appears asking whether you want to cancel the scan and dismiss the banner. Click "Yes, clear it" (or whatever the affirmative button reads in your theme).

The dialog disappears and the banner clears. You should see a brief confirmation flash near the top of the page.

3. Confirm the banner is gone

The Site Vitals card should now show its normal idle state, displaying your last successful scan results without the "Scan in progress" overlay.

If the banner is still there after this, hard-reload the page. On Windows that is Ctrl + F5; on Mac that is Cmd + Shift + R. A hard reload bypasses any cached version of the page and pulls a fresh copy from SGEN.

4. Optionally, run a fresh scan

If you cleared the banner because the previous scan got interrupted, you may want to start a new scan immediately rather than wait for the next scheduled run. Click "Run a new scan" on the vitals card. The card flips to a real, live in-progress state — this time you should see the spinner and the page counter advancing.

A small site typically completes a scan in two to five minutes. Larger sites take longer. Keep the tab open during the scan if you can; closing the tab mid-scan is one of the ways stuck banners happen in the first place.

What success looks like

After you complete the steps above, the Site Vitals card on your dashboard:

• Shows no "Scan in progress" banner.
• Shows the most recent completed scan's date and time ("Last checked 2 hours ago" or similar).
• Shows the headline result of that scan (Healthy / Warnings / Issues).
• Shows the "Run a new scan" button as available (not greyed out as it is during a real scan).

If you started a fresh scan in step 4, the card will switch back to a real in-progress state for a few minutes, then settle into its post-scan idle view with updated numbers.

What to do if it does not work

If the banner does not clear after following the steps above, work through the following list in order. Each step takes under a minute.

• Hard reload the dashboard. Press Ctrl + F5 on Windows or Cmd + Shift + R on Mac. This forces your browser to bypass any cached copy and pull a fresh version from SGEN. The most common reason a banner appears to "still be there" after clearing is that you are looking at a cached page.
• Try a different browser tab. Sometimes a long-lived admin tab holds onto an outdated page state. Open a new tab, log into the admin again from there, and check the dashboard.
• Try an incognito or private window. This rules out browser extensions, cached scripts, and any local data that might be interfering.
• Log out and back in. Logging out clears your admin session entirely. When you log back in, any leftover in-progress markers from the previous session are gone.
• Wait fifteen minutes and check again. If a real scan was still running, fifteen minutes is more than enough time for it to either finish or time out.

If after all of the above the banner is still there, the issue is on the SGEN side rather than something you can fix yourself. Contact support with:

• A screenshot of your dashboard showing the banner.
• The approximate time you first noticed it.
• The list of steps above that you have already tried.

Support can clear it from their end and investigate why your scan got into a wedged state.

Examples

Example 1: Your Store logs in to a stuck banner

You run the admin for Your Store. You are checking on the morning's web orders before opening the store. The dashboard loads and you see a "Site Vitals: Scan in progress" banner on the vitals card. You do not remember starting a scan and the banner looks frozen — no spinner, no counter.

You recall that a colleague was using the admin yesterday afternoon and may have started a scan that got interrupted when they closed the tab. You hover over the banner and see a small "Cancel" link. You click it. The dialog asks you to confirm. You pick "Yes, clear it." The banner disappears and the card flips back to showing yesterday's healthy result with a "last checked" timestamp from the morning before.

You decide to run a fresh scan now since today's content has not been checked yet. You click "Run a new scan." The card switches to a real in-progress state, spinner running, counter advancing — "Checked 12 of 47 pages." You leave the tab open and go to flip the open sign. By the time you return five minutes later, the scan has completed: still Healthy, average load time 1.1 seconds, no warnings.

Example 2: Your Store fixes a slow product page

The next week you open your admin and see the vitals card showing an amber "1 warning" status. You click through to the full vitals report. The warning reads: "Slow page: /shop/canvas-tote-bag (4.8 seconds)."

That page has a hero image added last weekend that you now suspect is not optimised. You click the warning, which takes you into the Pages area, open that product page, replace the hero with an optimised version, and save. You return to the dashboard and click "Run a new scan." After three minutes the scan completes: green, "0 warnings," healthy.

Example 3: Your Store had a banner stuck for a week

You go on holiday for a week. When you return and open the admin, the vitals card shows "Scan in progress" — and the banner has clearly been there the whole time, because the timestamp on the last completed scan reads "8 days ago."

This is the textbook stuck-banner case. You click "Cancel" on the banner. The dialog confirms. The banner clears. The card now shows the 8-day-old completed result.

You kick off a fresh scan immediately because a week-old vitals snapshot is not useful. The scan finishes in under five minutes. The result is "Healthy, 1.1s, no warnings" — same as before your holiday. Dashboard is back to normal.

Example 4: A real scan that legitimately took twenty minutes

Your Store Wholesale runs a much larger site than Your Store. Their catalogue has over four hundred pages. When their site admin kicks off a manual scan, the in-progress banner is genuinely accurate — the scan is running.

The first time they see it, after about ten minutes they wonder if it is stuck. They look more carefully and see the page-counter advancing: "Checked 187 of 412 pages." That counter is the tell — a stuck banner shows no movement; a live scan shows steady progress. They decide to keep waiting.

After another nine minutes the scan completes. The card shows "Healthy, average load time 1.4s, 2 warnings." The admin clicks through the warnings, fixes the two slow product pages, and runs another scan after dinner.

This banner was real, not stuck. Knowing the difference (counter advancing = real; counter frozen = stuck) is the most useful skill for the vitals card.

Example 5: Your Store Wine clears a banner left by a former admin

Your Store Wine recently parted ways with their previous web manager. When the new manager logs in for the first time, they see a "Scan in progress" banner that has been sitting on the dashboard for two weeks.

The banner is unambiguously stuck (two weeks is far longer than any real scan could possibly take). The new manager follows the standard steps: clicks Cancel on the banner, confirms in the dialog, hard-reloads to be safe, and then runs a fresh scan to get a current snapshot.

The new scan completes in under four minutes and reports two warnings — both about pages with very large hero images that the predecessor had recently uploaded. The new manager now has a real, current picture of the site's vitals and can prioritise fixing those two pages before the next scheduled scan.

Example 6: Multiple stuck banners on a multi-site account

Some customers manage several SGEN sites under one umbrella. The vitals card on each site is independent — clearing it on one does not affect the others.

Your Store Studio runs three sites: a portfolio, a client-services microsite, and a private-staging site. After a rough week of overnight maintenance work, the customer logs in to find that two of the three sites have stuck "Scan in progress" banners while the third is fine. They clear them one at a time, switching between site contexts via the site-switcher in the top navigation. Each clear is a self-contained operation.

For multi-site accounts, walk through the steps once per affected site. If many sites are affected at once and the timing matches a known incident on the SGEN side, support may already be aware and may be able to clear them in bulk — contact support with your account name and the list of affected site URLs.

Frequently asked questions

Will clearing the banner delete my vitals history? No. The card forgets that an in-progress scan was happening; everything previously recorded stays exactly where it was.

Will it cancel a real, running scan? If a real scan is running and you clear the banner, the scan stops and you lose the partial results. Always check whether the scan is genuinely stuck (counter not moving, no spinner) before clearing.

Does clearing the banner change my scan schedule? No. SGEN keeps the same automatic scan schedule regardless.

Can I clear someone else's stuck scan? No. The clear action only affects your own admin session. If a colleague is seeing a stuck banner on their account, they need to log in and clear it themselves (or contact support if they cannot).

Will my customers see anything change? No. The Site Vitals card is admin-only — nothing about your public site, public pages, or customer experience is affected.

What if I cleared the banner but the warning was real? The warning lives in the vitals report, not in the banner. The banner is just the "scan running" marker. The warning itself stays in the report until the next scan finds the underlying issue resolved.

How often should I run manual scans versus letting automatic scans run? Most customers find the automatic schedule (every six hours by default) is plenty. Run a manual scan if you have just made a significant change and want immediate confirmation.

Why do banners get stuck in the first place? Most stuck banners come from one of three causes: closing the admin tab while a scan was running, losing your network connection during a scan, or the scan worker on the SGEN side experiencing an unexpected error. The first two are by far the most common.

Can support clear the banner for me without me doing anything? Yes, but only if you grant them access via the documented support-access flow. Most stuck-banner cases are simpler than that — clicking Cancel on the banner yourself and hard-reloading takes under a minute.

Reference — stuck banner vs live scan

If both columns under "Stuck banner" describe what you are seeing, you are safe to clear. If both columns under "Real, running scan" describe what you are seeing, leave it alone and let it finish.

Common patterns to recognise

• Banner appears, finishes within five minutes, card updates, banner gone. This is the normal flow. Do nothing.
• Banner appears immediately after you click "Run a new scan," counter advancing. This is a real, manual scan. Wait it out.
• Banner appears overnight but is gone the next morning. This is the scheduled automatic scan. No action needed.
• Banner appears overnight and is still there the next morning. Check the page counter — if advancing, wait. If frozen, follow the steps on this page.
• Banner appears, no progress, sticks for hours. Stuck. Clear it.
• Banner clears, then re-appears within minutes without you doing anything. Unusual. Could indicate a worker on the SGEN side firing repeated scans. Contact support.

When the banner appears at the worst possible moment

Stuck banners have a way of showing up right when you do not have time to deal with them. You have two options:

1. Ignore it for now. A stuck banner does not block any other admin work. You can edit pages, manage orders, respond to contact-form messages, or do anything else with the banner sitting there. It is purely visual.
2. Clear it in twenty seconds. If the banner is going to keep distracting you, the recovery flow is short enough to fit between two tasks. Click Cancel, confirm, hard-reload, done.

Establishing a healthy vitals routine

A simple rhythm that works well for many admins:

• Morning check. Open the admin first thing. Glance at the vitals card. If green and idle, you are done in five seconds. If amber or red, click into the report and triage.
• After significant changes. Whenever you have just published a major page change, swapped a hero image, or added a redirect, run a manual scan from the vitals card. Confirm the change did not regress your vitals.
• End-of-week review. Once a week, look at the trend in your vitals report — is average load time creeping up? Are there pages that consistently flag warnings?

Working with team members

If multiple people share the same admin account, communicate around long scans. A simple chat message like "Starting a vitals scan now, will take ~5 mins" prevents the situation where a colleague closes the tab mid-scan because they did not realise one was running. Closed-tab-mid-scan is the single most common cause of stuck banners on multi-admin accounts.

Next steps

• Once your vitals card is clean, glance at the full vitals report under the "View full report" link to see the per-page breakdown and surface any slow or broken pages.
• If the report flags warnings, follow each warning's link into the relevant feature (Pages for slow pages, Redirects for broken redirect entries, Settings for certificate or domain issues) and resolve them at the source.
• Bookmark this page so you have the steps handy the next time you see a stuck banner.