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When the Photo Check Will Not Let You Continue

Who this is for: agents stuck on the photo step of a Rent Request.

What you will get from it: the cause of the block and the retake that clears it.

If the photo does not pass the check, the next step stays unavailable until you take one that does. This is deliberate: a photo that cannot be read is rejected later anyway, and finding out now saves you a second trip.

Read the message, then retake​

The app says what was wrong with the photo. Match it to the causes below, fix that one thing, and take another photo. Each retake is checked again straight away.

The face is too dark​

The commonest cause by far, and almost always the light behind the tenant.

Move so the daylight falls on their face. If they are standing in a doorway with bright sun behind them, swap places with them. Indoors under a single bulb rarely works — step outside.

The photo is blurred​

Either the phone moved or it had not focused.

Hold the phone with both hands, brace your elbows, ask the tenant to stay still, tap the screen on their face to focus, then take it. Wipe the lens — a phone that has been in a pocket all morning has a smeared camera.

No face was found, or more than one​

The check needs exactly one face, filling a reasonable part of the frame.

Move closer, to about an arm's length, at the tenant's eye level. Ask anyone standing behind or beside them to step out of the frame. If you are photographing a printed photo or an ID card, that is why — the photo has to be of the person, taken now.

The face is turned away or tilted​

Ask the tenant to face the phone squarely and look at it, chin level. People instinctively turn slightly or look down at the phone in your hands; lift the phone to their eye level and it corrects itself.

Something is covering the face​

Caps, sunglasses, a mask, a hand, a phone held up to the ear. Ask them to take it off or lower it for the one photo.

It still will not pass​

  1. Close the camera and reopen it, then retake.
  2. Try a different spot with better light — outdoors, out of direct glare.
  3. Check the lens is clean and nothing is over it, including a cracked screen protector.
  4. If your phone's camera is genuinely failing, a colleague's phone signed in to your own account will do.
  5. If none of that works, contact support with what the message says.

Do not work around the check by uploading a stored photo or a picture of a document. That is what the check exists to stop, and it fails at the verification stage instead.

Still need help?​

Contact Welile Support on WhatsApp, call +256 777 607640, or email info@welile.com.

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