Failed Post Recovery

Your post fails at 7am, and it's back in the queue before you're up.

Scheduled posts fail sometimes. Instagram has a bad ten minutes, a Facebook connection quietly expires, a carousel trips some media rule nobody mentioned. The part that stings is finding out three hours later that the launch never went out. Maeve keeps trying for you, and most blips clear on their own before you notice. When something is properly broken, it lands in the Failed Posts tab right away with a plain reason, the actual error the platform sent back, and a Retry button.

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Maeve failed-posts view with scheduled posts grouped by error type, an Instagram connection error and reconnect guidance, and the post preview

Most fails fix themselves

The first minutes are covered without you. When a platform has a wobble or throttles the account, Maeve keeps trying in the background, and the post usually goes out before you have opened the app. A check keeps sweeping every few minutes for anything that slipped through, so a post that quietly went missing gets picked up and tried again. After 24 hours past its time it stops for good, so yesterday's launch never sneaks out tomorrow morning.

When it needs you, the reason is plain

The posts that can't recover on their own land in the Failed Posts tab, grouped by what went wrong: connection expired, rejected by the platform, missed the window, a service blip, or failed to publish. Each row carries the exact message the platform sent back, so you fix the real thing instead of guessing, and each reason points at the button that clears it, whether that is Retry, reconnect, or edit and reschedule. A dead connection won't even let Retry fire until you reconnect, so you never burn an attempt on a wall.

The full recovery list

Three layers of retry with one Retry button on top: the automatic pass, the background sweep, and the Failed Posts tab where you take over.

Auto-retryA platform blip or a rate limit just keeps retrying until it clears. Most temporary problems fix themselves before you notice.
Knows when to stopA rejection or a hit daily limit gets marked failed straight away instead of hammering a wall over and over.
Background sweepEvery few minutes a check looks for posts that should have gone out and didn't, and tries them again.
Failed Posts tabEvery failure on one screen with the platform, the due time, the reason, and the buttons that fix it.
The real errorOpen a row and read exactly what the platform sent back, so you fix the right thing instead of guessing.
Filter by platform or reasonNarrow the list when a burst hits, like every Instagram failure from this morning or every expired connection.
One-tap retryHit Retry and the post goes back in the queue, the error clears, and it tries again right now.
Won't retry a broken connectionThe button holds until you reconnect the account, so you never burn an attempt on a connection that can't work.
Carousels and chains stay togetherRetry the parent and every slide or story resets with it, so you never ship slide 1 and lose the rest.
Real-time for everyoneThe tab and the calendar update the second a post fails or gets retried, on every teammate's screen, no refresh.
Every retry loggedWho retried, which post, when, and what happened, whether it came from the app, the API, the CLI, or an agent.
Stops at 24 hoursA post still failed a day later is marked 'missed the window' and stops. Reschedule, retry, or delete from the same screen.

Where recovery reaches

The Retry button is one way in. The same retry runs from your own service, an AI agent, or the terminal, and it writes the same line to the audit log every time.

Social Media SchedulerEight platforms, one calendar. Failed posts surface inline beside scheduled and published.Public REST APIPOST /v1/content/:id/retry. The same retry from your own service, with the same audit trail.MCP for AI agentsLet Claude, Codex, or Cursor list failed posts and retry them, with a confirmation string guarding accidents.CLI for the terminalmaeve content:retry. Drop it in a cron, a runbook, or an oncall sweep.Approval softwareAn approved post that fails to publish flows straight back to the Failed Posts tab, so reviewers don't chase it.

Free tools and comparisons

Plan the calendar and see how the recovery holds up against the tool you're leaving.

Social Media Calendar TemplateA free monthly calendar. Pair it with the Failed Posts tab to spot which slots keep failing.Buffer alternativeIf you got here searching 'buffer post failed', see how the two handle recovery side by side.

Failed-post FAQ

Why didn't my Instagram scheduled post go out?

There's usually five reasons. Instagram or Facebook had a bad few minutes. The account got rate-limited. The connection expired and needs reconnecting. The platform rejected the post for a content or media rule. Or the scheduled time passed before we could send it. We put the post in the Failed Posts tab with one of five plain reasons and the actual error from the platform, so you can tell straight away whether to hit Retry, edit the post, or reconnect the account.

Will Maeve retry automatically when a post fails?

Yes. If the platform's just having a bad moment, Maeve keeps trying for the first few minutes without you doing a thing. A brief outage or a rate limit usually recovers on its own. If the platform says your connection's expired, your post was rejected, or you've hit a daily limit, we stop retrying and put the post in Failed Posts so you can act.

How long does the system keep trying?

The first few minutes are covered automatically. After that, a background check runs every few minutes looking for posts that should've gone out but didn't. If it finds one, it tries again. After 24 hours past the scheduled time, it stops and marks the post 'Missed scheduling window'. Yesterday's launch doesn't go out tomorrow morning.

What if my Instagram or Facebook account disconnects?

Retry stops the moment the platform says the connection has expired. No point hitting a wall over and over. The post moves to Failed with a 'Connection expired' reason, and the Retry button refuses to fire until you reconnect the account. Reconnect, hit Retry, and it goes immediately.

Can I retry a failed post without opening the app?

Yes. Hit the same retry from the public REST API, the CLI, or an AI agent through MCP. They all run the same code path: reset the post to scheduled, clear the error, fire the publish job with no delay, and write one entry to the workspace audit log.

Do carousels and Instagram story chains retry as a unit?

Yes. Retry the parent post and every child resets with it. Carousel slides, story chains, multi-platform groups. You won't end up with slide 1 published and slides 2 to 5 stuck in failed.

How do I find failed posts in the first place?

There's a Failed Posts tab in your workspace. Filter by platform or reason. Each row shows the original post, the time it should've gone out, the reason it didn't, and the actual error from the platform. The tab updates the moment a post fails, so new ones show up without refreshing.

Will I get notified when a post fails?

Yes. Your Failed Posts tab updates in real time. Your calendar shows failed posts in red on the day they were due. No buried activity feeds, no surprises three hours later. If your team wants email or Slack alerts on top of that, the public API exposes the events so you can route them wherever you like.

What happens if a scheduled post is more than 24 hours overdue?

We stop retrying it and mark it 'Missed scheduling window: post was not published within 24 hours of scheduled time.' From the Failed Posts tab you can edit and reschedule, retry as-is, or delete. Whichever you pick gets logged.

Is every retry tracked in the audit log?

Every one. Whether the retry came from the app, the REST API, the CLI, or an AI agent. The log captures who did it, which post, when, and what happened. If an AI agent retries a post on your behalf, the log names the agent.

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