Portal access issues fall into three buckets — walk through them in order.
Check 1: portal disabled
If the portal toggle for this client is off, the URL returns 404. Open the company record → "Client portal" tab → confirm "Enabled" is on.
Check 2: user not invited
The portal URL works for any invited user. If the client is using an email you never invited, they'll hit "access denied." Confirm under "Portal users" which emails are active; add theirs if missing.
Check 3: magic link expired or used
The setup magic link expires after 7 days. If they wait too long to use it, the link returns "expired." Send a new invite from the same screen — supersedes the old.
Check 4: company-side email filtering
Some enterprise mail servers block magic links as a security policy. Ask the client to check Promotions/Spam, or send the URL through a different channel (text, Slack).
If they're logged in but pages look broken
Sometimes a CSS or JS failure makes the portal partially load. Have them try a different browser (Chrome → Firefox) and clear cache. If still broken, take a screenshot — almost always a sign of an old portal bookmark from a previous OMB Cloud version. Re-issue the portal URL.