troubleshooting · how to

Publishing failed

Diagnose and recover when publishing failed needs attention.

A scheduled or immediate publish can finish in a Publishing failed state when the social platform rejects the post or the connected account cannot complete the request. Read the reason Slack shows before you retry. Retrying without fixing the root cause usually produces the same error.

Prerequisites

You need access to Slash Social in Slack and the affected workspace, brand, account, and post. Admin-only fixes such as reconnecting accounts require a workspace owner, brand manager, or support.

Symptoms

You see one or more of these patterns:

  • A publishing failure notification arrives in Slack.
  • A post in Plan or Create shows Publishing failed.
  • The post never appears on the social network at the scheduled time.
  • The Plan queue lists the item under a failed or blocked state while the live network shows no post.

Likely causes

AreaWhat usually went wrong
Account healthThe profile is expired, disconnected, or missing permissions for the publish action.
MediaRequired files did not finish processing or no longer meet size and format rules.
Platform rulesCaption length, missing media, or format mismatches violate platform limits.
ScheduleThe slot is outside posting windows or no longer valid for the brand timezone.
ApprovalThe post did not reach an approved state before the publish time.

Fix it

Step 1: Open the post and read the failure reason

  1. Open the post from the failure notification, Plan queue, calendar row, or the Create work center content issues list.
  2. Read the reason shown in Slack before you retry.
  3. Confirm the active brand and the platform target on the post.
  4. Open the Plan queue and filter by queued or scheduled if you need to find the row in a long list.

Step 2: Repair account health

  1. Open Settings and check Accounts for the brand.
  2. Reconnect expired or disconnected profiles.
  3. Confirm the account still has publish permission on the target platform.

Step 3: Fix media and platform validation

  1. Confirm required media finished processing and still meets size and format rules for the target platform.
  2. Fix caption length, missing media, or format mismatches shown in preview or validation messages.
  3. For video posts, allow extra time after processing before you retry.

Step 4: Confirm schedule and approval

  1. Confirm the slot is still valid and inside posting windows for the brand timezone.
  2. Confirm the post reached an approved state before the publish time.
  3. If the slot passed, reschedule to the next open window in Plan.

Step 5: Retry the publish

After you fix the underlying issue, use Retry on the failed post or from the content issues view. Open /social and search for retry or failed if you do not see the button on App Home.

Confirm the fix

The post status moves out of Publishing failed toward scheduled, queued, or published. The live post appears on the platform after a short delay. Video posts may need extra processing time on the network before they are fully visible.

Prevention

  • Reconnect accounts when Settings shows a health warning before the next scheduled slot.
  • Run publishing readiness checks in Create when the work center surfaces them.
  • Keep approval routes staffed so posts reach approved state before publish time.

Escalate

Contact support when retry fails more than once with the same error, or when the platform shows the post live while Slash Social still reports failure.

Include:

  • Workspace name
  • Brand name
  • Platform and account handle
  • Post reference or title
  • Scheduled time
  • The full error text Slack displayed
  • Whether the Plan queue and the failure notification show the same reason