Items fail to publish: every message and what to do

When a file is published, each item is sent to your site on its own. An item can fail while the others succeed. This page explains every message an item can fail with.

Symptoms#

• The file's page says Published with errors and 3 failed.
• You received the email … finished with errors.
• On the Sites page, an item's result is failed, in red, with a reason under it.

First, find the reason#

1. On the file's page, select See why they failed and retry them safely. It opens the Sites page.
2. Under Publishing results, find the red failed results and read the sentence under each.
3. Find that sentence below. The last column says whether Retry safely can help: it resends the same content, so it helps only when the cause is on your site or your connection, not when the cause is in your file.

Likely causes#

Confirmed (reproduced in our tests):

• An item that was moved to the trash after the review, shown as The mapped WordPress item is in the trash. Restore it as a draft or delete it permanently, then retry safely. Restore it on the site, and Retry safely sends the content that was reviewed (retry failed items).
• The site was not reachable for a short while: the item's first try failed with The site could not be reached. Retrying the same operation is safe., and Content Uploader's own retry succeeded about a minute later, when the site was back. A site that stays away through the three automatic tries leaves the item failed, to be retried by hand.

From the program's own checks (each message below is written for one cause):

• permissions of the publishing account, an item that is in the trash or being edited, images the site could not take, a connection that ended, a connector that is out of date.

The messages#

The connection and the site#

Permissions and items#

Joomla articles#

Categories, tags and values#

Images#

Step-by-step solution#

1. Read the message and find it above.
2. Fix the cause: on your site (permissions, trash, connection, disk space), in the configuration, or in the file.
3. If Retry helps, select Retry safely next to the item. If not, fix the file and upload it again: the failed items are listed again as new or updated (retrying failed items).
4. Failed items gave their record write back. A retry needs an active site and one write left in your allowance.

How to verify#

• The item's result becomes succeeded, with the item's ID on your site.
• The file's page heading changes from Published with errors to Published.
• Open the item on your site and check its content.

If it persists#

Contact support with the item's record ID, the exact message, the time of the last attempt (from Attempt history) and which CMS version your site runs.