The network refused this post because the account has published too much in too short a time. Nothing is wrong with the post itself. Every network sets its own limit and its own reset, so the wait depends on where you were publishing.
What happened
CivAll sent the post to the network. The network turned it down and told us the account has hit a posting limit. The post is marked as failed and nothing further happens to it. CivAll does not retry a failed post on its own, so the post will not go out later unless someone publishes it again.
If the post went to several networks at once, only the network that refused it failed. The others are unaffected.
Why it happened
Networks cap how much a single account can publish. The caps are there to stop automated flooding, and they belong to the account, not to CivAll. Three things usually cause a city or county account to reach one:
- Several posts were scheduled close together, often from a bulk upload or a busy news day.
- The same account is also being posted to somewhere else, from the network's own app or another tool.
- A run of failures was retried by hand several times in a row, and each attempt counted against the limit.
What the limit is on each network
The limit and the reset are genuinely different per network, which is why the wait is different too.
- X. The account hit X's posting cap. X counts posts across everything connected to the account, so activity outside CivAll uses the cap up as well. Wait for the cap to reset, then publish again.
- Facebook. Facebook asked us to slow down on this Page. It is temporary and it is not a problem with your post. Wait a few minutes and publish again.
- Instagram. Instagram limits how many posts a Business account can publish through an API in a rolling 24 hours, and this account has reached it. There is no single reset moment. The window moves forward, so capacity comes back gradually as older posts age out of it.
- Threads. Threads limits how many posts an account can publish in a rolling 24 hours. It behaves like Instagram. Wait for the window to move.
- TikTok. TikTok caps how many videos an account can receive from an app in a day. Wait for TikTok's daily cap to reset, then publish again.
- YouTube. The channel's daily upload quota is used up. This quota resets on a fixed daily schedule rather than a rolling window, so waiting a few minutes will not help. Wait for the daily reset.
Networks word this failure differently. Wording such as "Too Many Requests," "user cap," or a request to reduce the amount of data being asked for all point to the same thing.
What to do
- Wait for the reset that applies to that network, using the list above. A few minutes is enough on Facebook. A rolling 24-hour window or a fixed daily quota takes much longer.
- Publish the post again once the wait is over. Publishing again is the only thing that sends it, because failed posts are not retried automatically.
- If the post was time-sensitive and the moment has passed, edit it before publishing again rather than sending it as written.
Do not keep retrying while the limit is still in force. Each attempt is refused the same way and the post still does not go out.
Keeping it from happening again
Spacing posts further apart is what avoids this. When several posts are going to the same account, put a gap between their scheduled times in the Planner instead of stacking them on the same minute. The gap that works depends on the network, and the accounts that hit limits most often are the ones publishing in bursts.
Two other habits help:
- Count posting done outside CivAll. On X in particular, posts made in the X app share the same cap.
- When you have a batch of finished posts with no fixed time, hold them and place them on the calendar at intervals rather than sending them all at once. See Using the queue.
When it is not a rate limit
A rate limit is about volume and timing, and it clears on its own. If the failure instead says the post was flagged, reviewed, or judged by the network, that is a different problem and waiting alone will not fix it. See Post failed: flagged as spam or Post failed: the network rejected the content.
If the failure says we could not tell whether the post went out, do not publish it again until that is settled. See Post failed: we cannot confirm whether it published.