5 Reasons Why You’re Unable to Post to Your Facebook Page
It’s a new day, and it’s just about time to put a little life into your Facebook page. You’ve got a nice post all ready to go in your mind, or maybe on paper, and you’re ready to hit submit. But what’s this? It’s not working? Well, crap. Now what? What’s going on here, and what can you do to fix it?
1. You’re Logged Into the Wrong Account
The first and most common cause of this issue is that you’re logged into the wrong account. This is a little less common now than it used to be, but it’s still pretty common amongst people who run more than one account and agencies who have a whole stable of different pages to run.
In the old days, there was a fairly common issue with Facebook pages due to the way you managed them. Back then, you had to manually shift control from your personal account to your page. This was back when you could make a page without needing to own a personal account and without needing to use business manager. In order to do anything on your page, you would need to log into the page account. This would allow you to post and use the page in much the same way as a personal account.
The problem back then was that you would go to post and find you can’t, because you’re still using your personal profile to post. You can post to the page, but not as the page.
Of course, this is no longer relevant, because Facebook has changed that system. These days, you don’t have a stand-alone Page account, just your personal Profile. If you want to post as the page, you simply need to be on the page itself – rather than on a different part of the site where you’re trying to post as the page – and you need to be logged into an account that has the right permissions to post.
If you’re logged into the wrong account, you won’t be able to post as the page. It’s that simple, really. It’s a good rule, too; you don’t want any old rando able to just come in and post as your page, after all.
So there’s the first part of troubleshooting you should do: check to make sure you’re logged into the right account and that you have the appropriate permissions to post. You might feel a little dumb if the solution is that simple, but trust me, it’s better than many of the alternatives.
2. Your Third Party App Lost Authentication
This one happens from time to time, and it’s probably the second most common cause of issues trying to post. When you’re trying to post through a third party management platform, like Buffer, Wishpond, or another common app, you might find you can’t. Now, this is adding an extra layer of problem between you and the solution. You have to troubleshoot each step of the way.
The first thing I would recommend doing is looking at the main page for whatever tool you’re using. It’s possible that the tool itself has some kind of downtime, maintenance, or unplanned issue that is stopping it from functioning properly. They will likely have an announcement posted where their customers can see it, though it may not be public. If their main page doesn’t show anything, look at their support page or somewhere in your dashboard where they may have been able to put a notification.
The second thing you should do is a little bit of Google research to see if anybody else is experiencing the issue, and why. I recommend a quick search using keywords like “ToolName Facebook Issue”, something generic enough to pick up pretty much anything. The important part is you want to filter the results for only news items from the last day. This will ensure that you’re only seeing the most recent news, so you aren’t muddying the waters with older issues or complaints.
If this doesn’t help, you can send a message to the support team of the tool you’re using. Assuming you’re a paid user, you should have access to at least email support, and you can report the issue. If it’s a system-wide issue, the team behind the tool will want to know and can give you an update. If it’s a localized issue, they can help you troubleshoot it.
One of the most common problems that leads to this issue, by the way, is simple expired authorization. Your tool needs to be authorized to use the Facebook API in order to post properly, and so you need to log in through it. Sometimes, that authorization expires and you need to log in again. You will need to log out and log back in, and this will likely fix it.
Another possible issue is that Facebook’s API rolls over from time to time, with older versions expiring and new versions being introduced. If an app you’re using relies on an older version and it hasn’t been updated, the tool will cease working. This won’t happen with powerful, popular tools like Buffer, but some low-end tools people like because they’re cheap don’t have proactive developers, and may be abandonware.
3. Your Account Had a Role Removed
You know about Facebook roles, right? There are a bunch of different roles a user can have when managing a page, and only a few of those roles have the permission necessary to actually post as the page. Obviously, if your account doesn’t have the right role, you won’t be able to post.
If you can’t post as a Facebook page, it might be worthwhile to check to see what role you have on the page. To do that, simply visit the page and click settings up at the top, and then click page roles in the column to the left. In order to be able to post as the page, you need either Admin or Editor as a role. You can have other roles as well, but you need one of those two.
So why might you no longer be either an Admin or an Editor for the page? There are a few possible reasons.
- You were cleaning up the accounts that have access to your page and accidentally remove your own admin role from your own page.
- The current admin of the page decided they didn’t want you to have access and removed your ability to post as the page. This might be accidental or it might be intentional.
- Someone compromised the account of the admin in control of the page and used that access to do as much damage as possible, primarily by removing authorized users so they can’t combat what they do.
- If you represent an agency, someone at the client whose page you’re trying to manage has decided they want to take matters into their own hands and removed your account. Alternatively, they didn’t realize your account was authorized specifically because you’re one of the people managing their page, and removed you to “clean up” their list of users as a security measure.
Of these, all of them can be resolved by talking to the admin of the page except when you’re the admin and you removed yourself. If this happens, you will need to contact Facebook directly, which can be a huge pain and take a long time, so get started as soon as you see that your page apparently no longer has an admin.
4. Your Account Broke the Rules
I liked when I said one and two were the most common causes of the inability to post to your Facebook page. In reality, this is often the number one cause. I don’t like to jump to conclusions, and I would rather give my readers the benefit of the doubt and assume that some bug or authentication issue is causing the problem rather than deliberate violation of the rules.
The fact is, the most common reason why you won’t be able to post on your Facebook page is that page being suspended. If Facebook has determined that you’ve broken their community guidelines or other rules one too many times, you will be locked out of some or all of the features of your page. Sometimes this is temporary, and sometimes it’s permanent. Sometimes it’s just the simple removal of a few features, like the ability to run ads or the ability to send Messenger messages. Sometimes it’s a complete suspension.
I’ll be honest here: I figure that any of you who are violating the rules probably know exactly what you’re doing. There aren’t many people operating in a vacuum where they “come up with” an idea that just so happens to break the rules accidentally. It’s your responsibility to read and understand both the Facebook Terms of Service and the community guidelines, as well as their other policies. You should know what you’re doing and why you’re doing it, as well as what repercussions it can have.
Now, sometimes you will legitimately be punished through no fault of your own. Facebook is dishearteningly susceptible to mass report campaigns, and they’ve been known to suspend accounts because of the volume of reports, even if those reports are unsubstantiated. If this happens, you will likely be able to appeal your suspension and can restore your account functionality. If you can’t, well, then you have a real issue on your hands.
5. A Facebook Bug is Breaking Posts
This one is last on the list because it’s probably not going to be the cause of your issue. I’ve only seen it happen once before, and while that doesn’t mean it hasn’t happened more than once, or that it can’t happen again, it’s not something I would count on as the first and foremost cause. More than likely it’s your last resort.
Check out this Reddit thread. About seven months ago, Facebook had a widespread bug that caused business owners to be unable to post to their Pages. This lasted for a day or two, and Facebook both didn’t acknowledge the issue and didn’t announce when they fixed it.
What happened? We still don’t know. It seems like it was related to browser or user agent for some people, so switching to a different web browser – like Microsoft Edge instead of Google Chrome – fixed it for them. Other people found that they couldn’t post via a web browser on a desktop PC, but were able to post just fine from their mobile app on a mobile device. Still others didn’t find any solution before the issue simply resolved itself.
This is up there with a whole class of problems I like to call “too big to matter.” If Facebook is causing an issue that makes it impossible to post, well sure that sucks, but you can’t do anything about it, so don’t worry about it. Likewise, if a road work crew severs a network trunk or some act of god takes out a huge chunk of the power grid nationally, all you can do is shrug and move on. It’s not like your complaints to customer service will get it fixed any faster.
Check what you can and look for issues you may be able to fix, and if you don’t find any, don’t worry about it. One day won’t make or break a business, at least not a normal day, and anything that’s set for an important day should be scheduled in advance anyway.