Something on your website or app broke, so you asked the AI tool that built it to fix it. It did, but now something else is wrong. A page lost its styling, a form stopped saving, or a feature you never mentioned has disappeared. So you ask again, and the next fix brings the next problem.

Or the fix worked when you tried it, and then stopped working once it was live.

You're not doing anything wrong. This loop is very common with AI-built tools, and it has a few usual causes. This guide is a check you can do yourself in about fifteen minutes. You don't change anything. You only look.

Why AI fixes go round in circles

  • It changes more than you asked. Asked to fix one button, an AI tool may rewrite the whole page or file it sits in, and quietly leave out a part it didn't think mattered.
  • It only sees what it's shown. The AI works from what's in front of it. Your live settings, your other files and the apps yours connects to may be invisible to it, so a fix can make sense on its own and still clash with them.
  • It makes the error go away, not the cause. Paste in an error message and ask for a fix, and the quickest way to make the message disappear is sometimes to skip the step that produced it. The error is gone, and so is whatever that step was doing.
  • Live is not the same as your screen. The live version can have different settings, different passwords or keys for the services it talks to, and real customer data. A fix that works in the preview can still fail there.
  • Each round starts from the last broken version. Without a saved copy that worked, every new fix is built on top of the one before, problems included.

The 15-minute check

1. Write down the last three rounds

For each one, write a line: what you asked for, what changed, and what broke next. Three lines side by side usually show a pattern, for example the same page breaking every time, or a fix that keeps undoing the one before it.

2. Find the last version that worked

Many AI building tools keep a version history, sometimes called checkpoints or snapshots. Look for it and find the last version where everything worked. Don't restore anything yet. Just note its date and what was asked for straight after it.

3. See what the last fix touched

If your tool shows what each change did, often as lines in red and green, open the most recent fix. Compare what you asked for with what changed. A one-line request that changed several files or whole pages is a strong clue.

4. Try the fix where your customers are

Open your live website in a private or incognito window, so you see what a new visitor sees, and try the thing that was fixed. If it works in the preview but not here, write that down. It points to a difference between the two, not to the fix itself.

Habits that make each fix stick

  • Save a working copy before every fix. Then any fix that goes wrong costs you a step back, not an afternoon.
  • Ask for the cause before the fix. Try "What is causing this? Don't change anything yet." Fixing a cause you understand is much less likely to break something else.
  • Ask for one small change, and say what must stay. For example: "Only change the sign-up button. Don't change anything else."
  • Check the live version after every fix, not only the preview.
  • After two rounds on the same problem, stop. A third round rarely goes better. That's the moment to look at why it keeps breaking.

What to do with what you found

If the last fix only touched what you asked and works live, well done. Keep saving a working copy before each fix, and the loop is much less likely to start.

If you found a pattern, keep your three lines, the date of the last working version and what you saw live. That's exactly what anyone helping you needs, and it saves them from starting at the beginning.

And if there's nobody to ask, I can look at it for you, read-only. Here's an example of the findings note you'd get.