When a post fails

Posting happens on real phones, and sometimes real-world things get in the way. A failed post is never lost: the video, caption, and account are all still there, waiting for a retry.

Common failure reasons

• •"Project not approved at scheduled time": the video reached its slot before you approved it. Approve the project, then hit Retry.
• •Device or connection errors: the phone lost its network or the app misbehaved mid-post. Usually transient; Pamba retries some of these automatically, and a manual Retry re-plans the rest.
• •Account not ready: the account was signed out or paused on its device. Reconnect it, then retry.
• •"Instagram didn't offer ... a trial reel": the post was scheduled as an Instagram trial, and Instagram offers trials only to professional accounts with at least 200 followers. Nothing was posted, and Retry stays yours: turn on Professional account in the account's Edit profile, or turn the trial off, then retry. Or schedule it as a regular reel, or once the account qualifies (a personal account becomes professional with Professional account in its Edit profile).
• •"TikTok found copyrighted music in this video": TikTok would post the video muted, with limited reach, so nothing was posted. Replace the video's audio, then hit Retry. Retrying the same video fails the same way.
• •"TikTok only lets a business account post with sounds cleared for commercial use": the account is a TikTok business account and the post's sound isn't cleared, so nothing was posted. Pick another sound, then hit Retry. Retrying with the same sound fails the same way. From then on, the sound search for that account's avatar lists only cleared sounds.
• •"TikTok says this post's sound isn't available": TikTok doesn't serve that sound, even when it still shows up in a sound search, so nothing was posted. Pick another sound, then hit Retry. Retrying with the same sound fails the same way.
• •"TikTok's mention list didn't offer @…": TikTok didn't offer an account for that handle in the caption when the phone typed it, so nothing was posted rather than post the mention as plain text. Check the handle is the account's exact TikTok handle (or remove it), then hit Retry. Retrying with the same caption usually fails the same way.
• •"Instagram flagged the caption": after the Share tap, Instagram said the caption looks similar to others that have been reported, so nothing was posted. Edit the post's caption, then hit Retry. Retrying with the same caption fails the same way.

When Instagram doesn't have your song

Instagram's music differs by country, and Pamba's phones post from the US. If Instagram in the US doesn't have the song you picked for a carousel or reel, the post still goes out: with another version of the same song when there is one, otherwise with a song Instagram picks. The schedule says which song went out, and Pamba stops offering the missing song. To choose the song yourself, pick another one before the post goes out.

Rarely, the post fails instead, with a message that Instagram in the US doesn't have its song. Pick another song and hit Retry, or retry as is and the phone looks again.

How Retry works

Retry finds the next available slot automatically (you don't pick the time) and revives the project's whole failed group: if a TikTok post and its Instagram mirror both failed, retrying either one re-schedules both (except a mirror our engineers are fixing, which stays with them). The previous error is cleared and the post goes back to Pending. A post isn't retried while another post of the same video to the same account is scheduled or already posted, so nothing posts twice.

Being fixed

If a post fails again after a retry, and the failure is one on Pamba's side, our engineers are alerted and take it from there: the post shows Being fixed instead of Failed, and Retry goes away. No action is needed from you. This is usually resolved within a few hours, unless we're sleeping, and the post goes out once they retry it. If it isn't fixed within a day, Retry comes back. You can still edit or dismiss it meanwhile.

An Instagram trial reel whose outcome Pamba could not confirm is our engineers' from its first failure, and Retry doesn't come back after a day: it may already be live, and Instagram keeps a trial off the profile Pamba checks, so it reads Being fixed until they have checked it on the phone, and they post it again only if it did not go out.

Failures you fix yourself stay yours to retry: approve the project, pick another Instagram song or sound, generate the slideshow's missing images, change the TikTok Shop link, replace audio TikTok flagged as copyrighted, pick another TikTok sound for a business account, fix a mention TikTok didn't offer, change a caption Instagram flagged, reconnect an account you connected that was signed out of its phone, or, for a reel Instagram offered no trial, turn on Professional account or turn the trial off, then hit Retry. When TikTok changed a linked product's price since Pamba last read the shop, Pamba reads it again by itself: retry the post a few minutes later.

If it keeps failing

A failure you can fix that comes back after a retry usually means something needs your attention upstream: the account connection, the song or sound, or the approval. Ask the agent "why did my post fail?" and it can read the error and point at the fix. Still stuck? Use contact support right from the chat.