# Fix an empty lead queue URL: https://useembers.com/help/troubleshooting/no-leads-yet/ Category: Troubleshooting Updated: 2026-10-29 Last verified: 2026-10-29 > Work the reasons a queue stays empty in order, from a scan still running or agents that are not scanning to an ICP or blocklist that filtered everyone out. An empty first scan is not the end of setup. Once it settles, your agents go live on their own and keep scanning, and the live scans often find leads within the hour. Embers will not invent names, so when nothing ranks there is a specific reason. Work through them in this order. ## Your agents are live and the first leads are on the way When the onboarding scan comes back empty, the screen reads **Your agents are live. Leads are on the way.** It names what the agents watch and search, says when the next scan runs (**Scanning now**, or "Next scan in 40m"), and that Embers emails you when your first lead lands. That email goes once per person, so if you already had it from another workspace the screen says new leads show up on the Leads page instead. Leave the screen open and it notices a confirmed lead from the live scans: it then reads **Your first leads are in.**, with how many, and **Open my leads**. Under it, **Suggested for you** lists pages your buyers follow and words they use; **Add** scans one too. When a keyword alone was too thin to find buyers, it says so and leads with pages to watch. The last section, **What the first scan found**, says in one line what came back empty and keeps the other ways forward: a narrower source when one is offered, **Change your ICP or sources**, and **Go to dashboard**. On **Leads** and the **Priority Queue**, the same moment reads **Your agents are running** and "New leads show up here as your agents find them.", with what the first scan found under it. ## What Leads shows before the first lead Until anyone has engaged with what you watch, **Leads** is one card, without the tabs, toolbar, column headers or page count: - **"No leads yet"** with "Leads appear once Embers knows who you sell to and has something to watch.", the two steps (**Describe who you sell to**, **Watch a profile or keyword**; a step you have done shows a check) and **Finish setup**, which returns you to onboarding at the step you left. Whoever runs the setup sees this while it is unfinished: the workspace owner, or an administrator from the agency on a client workspace. - **"No leads yet"** with "The workspace owner is still setting this up." and **See your team**, which opens **Settings**, then **Team** (`/settings/team`), where the owner is listed first. Someone who [joined the workspace by invitation](/help/getting-started/join-a-workspace/#where-you-land-after-joining) sees this instead while setup is unfinished, since setup is the owner's to finish. - **"No leads yet"** with "Embers is reading what you watch. The first leads usually land within a day." once setup is done. - The first scan's card while it runs, or what it found when it settles empty (the sections below). A search or filter that matches nobody is different: the tools stay, and the card reads **"No leads match"** with **Clear search and filters**. When people engaged but nobody fits your ICP yet, **ICP leads** reads **"No ICP leads yet"** with **See all engagers**. ## The scan has not finished The onboarding scan runs on the server and keeps running after you leave onboarding. The processing screen only shows an empty result once the scan has settled; until then it reads **Finding your first leads** and you can leave the page. If you move to another page in the same tab, a notice appears wherever you are when the scan ends, and the Leads count in the sidebar updates. After onboarding, agents run every **24 hours**. A profile you added an hour ago has not had its next pass yet, and a person who engaged this morning appears on the next run. ## The agents are not running If the queue was filling and then stopped, check **Agents** (`/agents`). An agent that is **Inactive** (the trial ended), **On hold** (a trial reached its engager cap), or **Paused** scans nothing. See [why your agents stopped scanning](/help/troubleshooting/agents-not-scanning/) for each status and how to restart it. ## Nobody engaged with the sources you chose Embers reads public activity inside the lookback window, 12 months by default. Two of the empty results say exactly this: - **The first scan found no recent public posts.** The profile had no public posts in the window. A recurring scan checks again as new posts appear. - **The first scan found posts, but nobody had engaged with them yet.** Posts were found and read. Nobody reacted or commented, so there is no audience yet. The [Posts page](/help/signals/posts-page/) shows which posts drew ICP engagers. This is the most common result for a profile that rarely posts, or a watched profile that has gone quiet. Settings will not fix it; you need a source with recent public engagement. [What the first scan reads](/help/signals/history-lookback/) explains the window. ## Your keywords found posts but no leads A keyword search has no engagements to collect: the lead is the person who wrote the post. When the workspace tracks keywords and has no leads yet, **Leads** shows one of two cards instead of the engagement results above. - **Checking keyword posts.** It reads "Finding leads in posts from your keywords" and "Checking each post and its author against your ICP." The search is done and the check is still running. Leads appear when it ends. - **No leads from your keywords yet.** It says how many posts the scan read and that none came from someone who fits your ICP. An author becomes a lead when they fit your ICP and the post is not selling a service like yours, so keywords that name your service find mostly your competitors. Choose **Review keywords** and rewrite them in your buyers' words, such as the problem they describe or "looking for" and "recommend", or **Review your ICP** if your buyer description is narrower than the people you sell to. [Pick keywords that find buyers](/help/signals/keyword-tracking/#pick-keywords-that-find-buyers) has examples. ## Everyone who was found was filtered out The other three empty results mean people were found and then removed: - **Nobody in the first scan fit your ICP yet.** Everyone was checked against your buyer description and none matched. A narrow or jargon-heavy ICP does this, and so does a source whose audience is peers rather than buyers. - **We found buyers, but their profiles were too thin to show yet.** Some people fit your ICP, but their public profiles were missing a name, role, company, or the engagement that surfaced them. Embers holds them back rather than showing a half-empty card, and they fill in as new engagement arrives. - **We found buyers, but none of their posts described a need you solve.** Only a keyword scan ends this way. A keyword scan ranks the people who wrote the posts it finds, and people who fit your ICP did post about the keyword, but to sell or only in passing. Track a keyword your buyers use when they describe the problem, not the name of the category you sell, or watch a competitor whose audience is your audience. Three more filters run all the time: - A lead needs a score above zero **and** either an ICP match or your manual approval to show in the default view. - You and your teammates are left out, and so are employees of a competitor you track. - Anyone at a company on your [company blocklist](/help/leads/company-blocklist/) is removed everywhere, including Slack, HubSpot, webhooks, and exports. > **Tip: Check the ICP before the sources** > > If the screen says people were checked and none matched, your buyer description is doing the filtering. Widening it is faster than adding sources. See [read and correct an ICP match](/help/leads/icp-matching-and-feedback/) and [define your ICP](/help/getting-started/define-your-icp/). ## Widen the sources One quiet profile and no keywords give Embers a small window into LinkedIn. Broaden it: ### Watch more profiles Add public profiles whose audience is your audience: competitors, influencers, investors, clients. Your own profile counts as one of them. See [watch any public LinkedIn profile](/help/signals/watchlist/) and the per-plan caps in [plans and limits](/help/account-and-billing/plans-and-limits/). ### Add keywords [Keyword tracking](/help/signals/keyword-tracking/) finds people posting publicly about your problem, whether or not they have ever seen you. Keywords start on Solo. ### Turn on the agents you skipped Your profile, watched profiles, and keyword tracking each read a different surface. Running only one of them is a common cause of a thin queue. ## The alternate scan during onboarding When the first onboarding scan settles empty, Embers starts **one** alternate scan against a narrower source on its own: a keyword taken from your ICP, or a competitor your ICP names. The screen reads **A narrower source scan is starting.** If the card offers the alternate scan as a button instead, choose it. Correcting an input or an infrastructure retry does not use it up. Once it has been used, your agents start on their own and keep watching new engagement, and the screen becomes the one in [your agents are live](#your-agents-are-live-and-the-first-leads-are-on-the-way). If the agents could not start (a trial that ended, say), the card reads **Set up a recurring scan next** and offers **Set up recurring scans**. ## When to ask for help If the alternate scan ran, you widened the ICP, and you added sources, and the queue is still empty, there may be no public engagement to read. Email [viraj@useembers.com](mailto:viraj@useembers.com) with the sources you picked and we will tell you whether Embers has anything to work with. ## Related - [Find out why your agents stopped scanning](/help/troubleshooting/agents-not-scanning/): Inactive, on hold, paused, or failing. - [Read and correct an ICP match](/help/leads/icp-matching-and-feedback/): Fix the verdict that is filtering people out. - [Watch any public LinkedIn profile](/help/signals/watchlist/): Add sources with an audience that buys. ## Frequently asked questions **How long does the first scan take?** The onboarding scan runs on the server and keeps going after you leave the page. The screen only shows an empty result once the scan has settled, so a queue that is still processing is not empty yet. **Can I run another free scan if the first one is empty?** Embers runs one alternate scan against a narrower source on its own. After that, the next step is a recurring agent, which checks new engagement every 24 hours. **Why does a lead I can see on LinkedIn not show in my queue?** A lead needs a score above zero and either an ICP match or your manual approval. People on your own team, employees of a competitor you track, and anyone at a blocked company are left out.