Custom GPT Will Not Accept PDFs to Knowledge Base

Is anyone else having trouble uploading PDF files to a Custom GPT’s knowledge base?

I am trying to upload a PDF file to a new Custom GPT knowledge base, and I get a momentary red error message that demands image files. I’m a lawyer, so an image file is basically worthless — we work entirely in PDF and Word files.

Any help or thoughts would be appreciated!

Hi @colin.g.prince2 :wave:
Welcome :people_hugging: to the community!

I just tested, and there is no problem on my end.

But, I experienced in the past, too.

Some probabilities:

  • Network problem (but it should give error as ‘File upload fail.’)
  • VPN
  • Some extensions or plugins on the browser.
  • There could be a bug on ChatGPT at that moment, so check the Status of OpenAI
  • Some files uploaded before this file, and storage is full, more than 20 files (limit 20 files)
  • The file size problem. The maximum file size is 512 MB. Each file should contain no more than 5,000,000 tokens per file (computed automatically when you attach a file).
  • On GPT builder, if you try to update GPT, before file completely uploaded. In the image below, sample1.pdf gives error if we force to update on GPT Builder.

I used some workarounds:

First log out from all devices, then sign in from only one device.

1- When I want to create a custom GPT or upload files, I use another browser that does not have any extensions or plugins. And it works generally.

2- I upload files to Google Drive or Icloud, I launch ChatGPT on my mobile phone using a browser like Google Chrome. I copy paste everything from clouds, and upload files. I never faced with a problem on the phone when creating custom GPT or uploading files.

My suggestion might sound ridiculous, but the editor is dumb. Instruct it to include PDF reading capabilities, and if images are there, to know how to treat them - graphics, formulae in image format (requires OCR) and so on…
My esp32 code builder did not accepted zip files - basic, but yes, it was here I discovered you must ensure it covered every aspect (it’s not smart).

You’re awesome. The log-out from all devices appears to have fixed it. The only other device I had used it on was my phone. Once I logged out from both, it started working again. Thanks, sir!

What’s so weird is that I got such a bizarre error message (saying that it would accept only image files).

Thanks so much for responding! It appears to have been an issue with needing to log out of all devices.

This is related to what I said!