Having trouble getting the AI to recognize a document

DEVONthink
1

I’ve been having an issue getting the AI to recognize a document when trying to chat about it. What has been happening is I will go to the document and then ask the AI and, typically, I need to re-select the document and ask again.

However, now I can’t get it to see the document at all. I am asking a simple “Prioritize this list” and regardless of whether I click on the file in the list or on the document main window, it can’t see it. I’ve tried multiple models with the same result.

Before I quit and restart DT4, is there a log or something I can share that would help with this?

2

What engine and model are you using?

3

I’ve tried Anthropic Haiku, Opus, Sonnet (I don’t remember if 3.5 or 37), and ChatGPT 4.1 Nano.

4

A document isn’t a list, so have you tried “Prioritize the list in the selected document” ?

PS: The request is quite vague. Prioritize it based on what criteria?
And as I just noted, here is…

  • Haiku’s initial reply
  • My still somewhat insufficient but more explicit second request and Haiku’s attempt at giving me a useful response
  • And giving it actual criteria to prioritize by (and using the same prompt shortcut as my previous request is still a valid part of the context)

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5

Ah, interesting. When I add “… in this document” it does see the document. I don’t think I had to do that before. Simply clicking on the document was sufficient.

When I follow up and ask, “are there any other questions that might also be useful?” - it replies, “I apologize, but I realize now that I don’t actually see the document you’re referring to.”

I see this in the help document:

“Selection: The AI firstly sees a selection as everything it has access to. This includes a selected document, even if it’s not currently displayed in the view/edit pane. When you search, it will report it’s “Searching the database”, however it is only searching the selected item. If you have a group selected, AI will search the documents in that group and its subgroups. So selecting a document or a group gives you very strict control. And yes, if you select multiple groups, they will be all be used as the limits of AI’s reach.”

Which is why I assumed I only needed to select a single or group of documents in order for the AI to know what I’m referring to.

6

The terminology to use with AI engines and models will vary and as they’re not static responses, some reiteration or re-asking may be needed at some point. Especially with the lower-tier models, being more explicit is often useful in my experience. Higher-tier models generally are more understanding.

7

Yup, I get that. But if I’m understanding what you’re saying… even if the AI is supposed to know which documents are selected, we still might need to specifically reference them when we ask.

8

Yep, I’d say so.