Frequent “post failures” or “missing posts” (and how to resolve)

Occasionally, we receive complaints about “publishing / post failures” or “missing posts” (posts gone missing…). In many of these cases, users use the live Calendar that shows the “Scheduled Posts” and which is part of the Publishing & Scheduling work space (right upper corner).

First, when this happens, we want to hear about it immediately, as in rare cases we may have an issue with our system which we want to know about and quickly resolve.

However, more often than not, many of these events happen due to issues with the respective social media platforms (e.g. renew token) or attributed to user experience / handling (e.g. forgotten profile filters - see below.)

Below are recurring issues we stumble upon all the time and our recommendations of how to resolve which we hope will help you trouble shoot “publish / post failures".

CALENDAR FILTER

Occasionally, users have filtered one or two profiles on the “publishing & scheduling” page and kept that filter. In such a case, you will not be able to see on the Calendar all your scheduled posts and may believe these have disappeared.

How to resolve:

On the upper right corner of the “publishing & scheduling” page, click the filter icon (as shown in the image capture below) and click on “all profiles” to show all posts and profiles on the Calendar.



RENEW TOKEN

In many cases, it is required to renew a token that has either expired or invalidated. This may happen in cases:

A user changed their password on the social media site
A user changed their authentication on the social media site to a “two step authentication”
Some platforms, e.g. LinkedIn, reset tokens periodically

How to resolve:



Once you clicked on the button, you will be directed to this window. Click on the 3 vertical dots and select renew token. “renew account token”. A new window will open with guidance on how to renew the token.



Note: Specifically for Facebook (FB) and Instagram Business (IGB) - if you attempt to post to a FB Page or IGB account where you have insufficient permissions, FB and IGB will automatically expire your tokens. (Example: FB account is no longer admin of FB Page, FB Page requires FB account to have 2FA enabled before posting to FB Page, FB is requiring FB account to submit FB account identity verification for review before being able to post to page)

TURN ON THE EMAIL NOTIFICATION

In order to be alerted on “post fails”, you can set email alerts. That way, you will not be surprised or learn the hard way that a post has failed.

Due to the complexity of API requirements for certain social media networks, together with connectivity issues that occasionally occur, posts might not get published. eClincher can send you an email notifying you about the failure right away and also provide additional details about the nature of the failure, so you can take appropriate action.

How to resolve:

Here's how to enable post failure notification emails:

In eclincher desktop app click on the bell icon and access Notification Settings.

Note: you can also enable/disable this functionality at any time from the Notification settings.



POST APPROVAL - MISSING PROFILE or SCHEDULE

In the Premier and Agency plans, a post approval workflow in enabled.

If a post in the approval list is missing either a PROFILE or a SCHEDULE (i.e. the Profile or Schedule fields are empty) – the post will stay in the approval list queue and will not be added to the Calendar.

How to resolve:

Click Approval List tab. Scroll down to the Post you are looking for and check if the “Profile and Schedule” fields (As show in the image below) are populated.



POST APPROVAL – DUE DATE PASSED

In case someone has assigned a post for Approval with a set Schedule due date, but the approving party approved the post after the Schedule due date, that post will stay in the post Approval List and will not get published nor will it appear in the Calendar as scheduled or posted.

How to resolve:

A new date needs to be set and the approval has to be granted before the scheduled date of the post.

IGB STORY / MULTI IMAGE (REQUIRES MOBILE PUSH NOTIFICATION)

IG doesn’t allow to post to “Story” or post multi-images (“Carousel”) from non-mobile devices. eClincher has a solution for that using our Mobile App and a Push Notification function. However, in many cases, users post to IG using their PC and forget to use push notification or follow through with their mobile device.

How to resolve:

When posting to IG STORY, IG REELS or with attached GIF file, you must first:

Have the eclincher mobile app installed on a mobile device and the mobile device has to connected in order to Receive the push notification and publish your posts.

Before you post, you must Click on the “Use Push Notification” button as shown in the image below.



Once you Publish, check your mobile device where you will receive the push notification and then click through the push notification and post through the eclincher app. If you missed a Push Notification, you can always check all the IG pending posts on the eClincher app, through the IG icon which appears on the top right corner of the app.



POST FAILED / DIDN'T PUBLISH ON GOOGLE MY BUSINESS PAGE

You may have scheduled a post or tried to publish it to Google My business location and the post failed to publish.

How to resolve:

There are three options to why your post failed to publish on Google My Business:

Please make sure your team member or the person who publishes and schedules posts to Google My Business is defined as: Primary owner, Owner, Manager, or Communications Manager. This setup can be done from Google My Business Settings popup.



If you have multiple locations of Google My Business - more than 9 locations, Google will not support publishing from their API. The API only supports up to 9 locations (Google may support more locations in the future).

Here is the FAQ from Google My Business partners API page:

Q: Who is allowed to post through the API A:Any business or brand with fewer than 10 locations (as determined by our internal chain detection) can use the API to post on Google. Brands with >= 10 locations are not eligible for posting at this time.

If GMB location category is set to Hotel or Casino - you won't be able to post to this location using 3rd party applications. (Google policy)

SUMMARY:

Occasionally, we receive complaints about “publishing / post failures” or “missing posts” (posts gone missing…).

More often than not, many of these events happen due to issues with the respective social media platforms (e.g. renew token) or attributed to user experience / handling (e.g. forgotten profile filters.)

We hope this guide helped you find you missing posts, but if you still can’t find your post, please contact the eclincher live chat 24/7 support.

Thank you,

The eclincher team

Updated on: 23/03/2023