Understand post status
My post says Partial, Pending or Error — what does that mean?
One post usually goes to several destinations, and they do not succeed or fail together. The Status chip is a summary of all of them. The icons in Channels and the messages on the post's own page are the real story. When something looks wrong, open the post and read each destination.
Key facts
| Where to look | Social → Publishing: the Table (Status and Channels columns), the calendar, the post's page, and Review posts for problems |
| Status chip | A summary of every destination, for example Partial when some went out and some did not |
| Channel icon badges | A green tick means published, a red exclamation mark means failed, grey means waiting |
| Per-destination state | The Publishers tab on the post's page |
| Failed, not confirmed, retrying | Counted in the Needs attention strip and listed on its own page |
| After a partial failure | Use Recover failed or a per-destination Retry, not Publish Now |
Why this matters
Partial is the state most likely to cause a duplicate. It reads like a failure, but the post is already live on the destinations that accepted it, so do not recreate it. Recover only what failed, and check an unknown result first, so customers do not see the same post twice.
Steps
Open Social → Publishing and choose the client or location. Select Table.
Read the Status chip for the overall result, then the Channels column. A destination icon with a green tick went out, one with a red exclamation mark did not, and a grey one is still waiting. Hover an icon to see that destination's state and, where the network gave one, its message. Select an icon to open the live post when it has one.
Select the post to open its page. A banner at the top names the locations that failed, and the Publishers tab lists every destination with its own state.
Read the message under the failed destination, then act on it as described in What to do about an error below.
To work through every problem across your clients, select Review posts in the attention strip, or open Needs attention, described below.
What the labels mean
The Status chip uses these labels, and they differ slightly between screens.
- Draft: saved, not sent. Nothing has been attempted.
- Scheduled: waiting for its publish time.
- Paused: held on the calendar. It will not go out until you resume it, and it is not a failure.
- Publishing: in flight right now. Give it a moment.
- Active: live on its destinations. On the Table this includes a post that is live on some and failed on others.
- Partial: some destinations took it and others did not. The post is live somewhere, so do not recreate it.
- Failed: every destination failed. On the post's own page the same state reads Error.
- Expired: an Offer or Event whose dates have passed. This is normal.
- Deleted: removed from the networks it had published to.
Each destination has its own label on the Publishers tab: Pending, Publishing…, Published, Error, Deleted, Expired, or Not confirmed. A Google post can also show Pending Google approval while Google reviews it. A destination you publish to by hand shows Ready for you to publish until you record the live link.
A post whose only failed destination is waiting on an automatic retry still reads Failed in the Table. The attention strip counts it separately as retrying.
What to do about an error
Read the message first, because the fix depends on it.
- The network rejected the image, video or text. For example Facebook Page rejected the image or video. Check the file size and format, then republish. This is yours to fix. Edit the post, change the file or the wording, and send it again.
- The connection expired or lost a permission. For example The Facebook Page connection has expired or is missing permissions. The post is fine. Reconnect the profile in Connections, then recover it.
- A posting limit was reached. For example Google Business Profile refused this for now because a posting limit or quota was reached. The post and the connection are unchanged. Nothing needs reconnecting. Synup retries on its own, and you can Retry once the limit clears.
- Google moderation. If Google rejects a post after accepting it, the page says so but Google does not give a reason. Check your Google Business Profile dashboard and edit the post.
- A temporary network problem. Synup retries these automatically. Use Retry if it has stopped trying.
Recover failed is on the post's page for Partial and Failed posts. It creates a new draft for only the failed destinations, so destinations that are already live are not affected, and you can edit the content before scheduling it.
Not confirmed is not the same as failed
If Synup sent a post and never got an answer from the network, the destination reads Not confirmed, and the message says: We sent this to Instagram but never got an answer, so it may already be live. Check Instagram first — sending it again could post it twice. Open the network and look before you do anything else. A post with an unknown result has no Recover failed button. If you check and the post is not there, you can send it again, and Synup asks you to confirm that you checked first.
Needs attention
When posts need a person, a strip above the Table or Calendar says so, for example 4 posts need attention, with chips such as 2 failed, 1 not confirmed, 1 late, and a separate Watching group for posts that are retrying on their own. Review posts opens the full Social · Needs attention page, which has two lanes: Needs action and Watching. The Social item in the left navigation also carries a badge with the count.
Select a post in the list to see every destination's outcome and the safe next step.
Review retry is available only after Synup has used up its automatic retries, and it is for failures Synup can classify. It covers all the destinations on that post that are eligible and leaves ones that already published alone. It is not offered for work that is queued, in the future, blocked, or whose result is unknown. Reasons a post appears here include a failed destination, a result Synup could not confirm, a connection that needs reconnecting or is about to expire, a post past its time that has not gone out, and a post that has been publishing for too long.
What the filter can and can't find
The Status filter offers five choices: All, Active, Scheduled, Draft and Failed. Active includes Partial and Publishing posts, Scheduled includes Paused ones, and Failed means every destination failed. To find a partly published post, choose Active and look for Partial in the Status column, or use Review posts.
What you'll see when it's done
- A Published destination with a link to the live post
- A Failed or Not confirmed destination with the reason beside it
- After Recover failed, a new draft for the failed destinations only, and the original post unchanged
Watch out for
- Check before resending a Not confirmed destination. The post may already be live.
- A failed post is not always your content. A lost connection or a posting limit is not something editing the post will fix.
- Retrying has limits. Synup retries temporary problems and posting limits itself, up to 8 attempts. After that, Review retry is the manual step.
- Agency members recover and retry. Client portal users can see status but cannot recover or retry.
Questions people ask
Why does the Table say Failed but the post page says Error?
They are the same state. The Table calls it Failed and the post's own page calls it Error.
Why is there no Recover failed button on my post?
Recover failed is only for posts that failed or partly failed with a result Synup knows. A post whose result is Not confirmed, one that is still scheduled or publishing, and one that was imported from a network do not have it.
Why is my post still Pending?
Pending is the normal state between pressing publish and the network confirming. If it stays that way well beyond its time, the post shows under Needs attention.
Does a Partial post mean something is wrong?
Only for the destinations that failed. The rest are live. Open the post, fix or retry the failed ones, and leave the live ones alone.
Next
If the post isn't in the list at all, finding a post covers the scoping reason that usually explains it. For what the networks did with a post that published cleanly, see post analytics.