Why does a piece say it may be incomplete?

A chapter is translated in pieces, and a piece is marked May be incomplete when what came back doesn't line up with what went in: a placeholder like [...] where text should be, paragraphs merged or dropped, an empty paragraph, or a piece far shorter than its original.

Why it happens. Models are trained to be brief, and a long or repetitive passage is where one shortens or summarizes instead of translating it. Some quietly skip a passage they won't translate rather than saying so. And a model can run out of room part-way through. Translating in pieces is the first defense against this, because a shorter ask keeps a model careful; this check is the second.

On Crossleaf Standard

You will usually never see this. When a piece fails the check, Crossleaf Standard translates it again by itself on a stronger engine, and only that one piece. If that one falls short too it tries once more, a step further up. Only if every step has been tried is the piece marked and handed to you — and by then it has already had the best we have.

Those retries cost no leaves. They count toward your month (or your free allowance) like the rest of the chapter, and they happen while the chapter is running, so a chapter that arrives complete simply arrives complete.

On a premium model

Here nothing is retried for you, because you chose the model and it is your leaves being spent. Open the piece and press Retry this piece, which fixes most of them. If the same model comes back incomplete again, press Retry on another model — different models draw the line in different places. Or edit the text yourself in the piece's output box, which is free.

A premium retry is quoted and charged like any other premium piece, and only after you press the button.

How the check works. Every paragraph is numbered on the way to the model and counted on the way back, so nothing extra runs and no model is asked anything.

See also Why did my chapter fail, and was I charged? and Which AI translates my book?.