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LinkedIn Post Failed to Publish: Why Does This Happen?

Written by James Parsons • Updated June 18, 2024

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LinkedIn Post Failed to Publish

With Facebook seeming on its way out in terms of public perception if not actual numbers and Twitter’s push to rebrand as X and kill off any goodwill it had, and with competitors like Bluesky not quite taking off the way anyone involved had hoped, people are increasingly turning to other forms of social media for their marketing.

To the surprise and pleasure of Microsoft, this has left LinkedIn as one of the most popular and somehow still thriving social networks. More and more people are either returning to or starting fresh on the platform and encountering many of the same issues that have plagued marketers on the site since time immemorial (or at least a few years ago).

One such issue occurs when you’re ready to publish a post on your LinkedIn page. You’re logged in, and you have your post ready to go, but when you hit submit, you’re greeted with an error message. “Post failed. Please try again.”

What’s happening, and how can you fix it? Let’s dig in and figure it out. Unfortunately, there are a lot of different possible issues, and it’s a very generic error message that doesn’t give many options or much detail to use to troubleshoot.

You Don’t Have Permission to Post to the Page

The first and one of the most common causes for failing to be able to post is when you’re trying to post to a page, but you’ve accidentally signed in as a profile. This is similar to Facebook, which has both personal profiles and business pages, and LinkedIn, which has personal profiles and business profiles. It’s just harder to tell, sometimes, which one you’re on and which one you’re trying to post to.

When you want to post content to a business profile, you need to have permission as a user to post to that profile. There are four possible roles you can have for a page: Analyst, Curator, Content Admin, and Super Admin. Out of these four roles, only Content Admins and Super Admins are able to post to a page.

LinkedIn Page Admin Role Permissions

An error I often see is that the person trying to post to the page is logged into the wrong account to post. Sometimes, it’s because a business maintains a business account that you need to log into to post, and sometimes, it just means juggling different personal accounts. Either way, make sure you’re using the right kind of account for the location you’re trying to post.

You’re Trying to Post Media that Doesn’t Meet the Requirements

Another of the most common issues is that LinkedIn has limitations on the media, in particular, the images that you can include in a post. Unfortunately, they aren’t super clear about what those requirements are. Violating them simply means your post won’t post, you’ll get the “post failed” error, and you’ll be left scratching your head.

The featured image in a post should be 1200×644 pixels. Single square images should be 1080 pixels to a side, and portrait images in a post can be up to 1920×1080. Blog post link images should be 1200×627. There are also a variety of other sizes, such as for images in LinkedIn Stories or in carousels. You can find a bunch of resources like this one to help you keep track of it all.

LinkedIn Post Optimum Image Sizes

You’ll run into trouble for going over, though technically, LinkedIn can support images up to 7680×4320. It’s pretty meaningless to post images that large unless you really need to, though. Additionally, LinkedIn only allows images up to 8MB in size, and a larger image is more likely to go over that limit.

Finally, you can also end up going under the minimum. LinkedIn doesn’t want you to post images that are too small, so their minimum is 200×200. Even then, it’s shuffled over as a thumbnail instead.

Personally, I find that the easiest option is to post without images at all and then add images in edits as needed; alternatively, post a bunch of images (trying selectively until it works) and then add in your text. It’s tedious, but it works.

You’ve Added Too Many Mentions

One of the most useful features for networking and engagement on LinkedIn is the ability to directly mention another user in a post. You can do this to refer an audience to their expertise, notify them when you’re quoting them, or for a variety of other purposes.

Adding a Mention to a LinkedIn Post

Another issue with LinkedIn posts, though, is that this feature has been abused in the past as a way to spam people and make their notifications unusable. In order to minimize abuse, there’s actually a cap on the number of people you can mention in a single post. LinkedIn lets you tag more people in a post, but when you try to publish it, you guessed it: Post Failed.

So what’s the limit? 40. So, if you’re habitually mentioning people when you organically mention them in a post, go back and strip out a few of them and make sure you weren’t over the cap. I’ve seen it happen a lot with, for example, quote roundups and discussion posts where you’re responding to the things a lot of people say, and it’s easy not to realize you’ve hit that limit.

You’re Trying to Tag a User who Blocked Tags

Similarly to the above, if you’re trying to tag a user and that user has blocked you specifically, turned off tagging in general, or turned off mentioning their account (likely because of abuse in the past), then your post will fail.

Turned Off Tagging on LinkedIn

This can be the case even if you only have half a dozen tags in your post; you need to go through and remove each one to test individually and see if there’s someone you just can’t tag.

Something in a Hashtag is Tripping Content Moderation Flags

This is another issue similar to the mentions one, which is hashtags. LinkedIn lets you use hashtags as part of your marketing strategy, though personally I don’t know how valuable they actually are. They do, however, maintain a list of words and phrases that have been broadly abused or are simply offensive, and prevent you from using them in your hashtags. If you try, your post will fail.

LinkedIn Hashtags

The issue here is that sometimes, like all word filters, it can get a little overzealous. Even if you have a perfectly acceptable phrase, if the end of one word and the beginning of another combine to form something that looks to a computer like a slur, then your post is going to be blocked for it. It’s a relatively rare cause, but it can happen, especially since LinkedIn doesn’t publish the list of prohibited words anywhere.

Your Browser is Out of Date

A bit of an odd one here; make sure your web browser is up to date and that you aren’t using any of the wide, wide variety of script, tracking, and ad-blocking plugins when you’re trying to post to LinkedIn. I’ve seen a few accounts of people trying to post to LinkedIn, and it doesn’t work, with the frustratingly vague “post failed” message over and over, no matter what workarounds they tried.

Sometimes it turns out to be something like NoScript, or AdBlock, or PrivacyBadger, or another privacy-centric plugin. Sometimes it’s because you have scripts, third-party tracking cookies, or some other element of web browsing blocked. Sometimes it’s just because there was a bug in a particular version of the browser and it needs to be updated.

Google Chrome Up to Date

My first step for troubleshooting if the browser is the issue is to use another. Swapping between Safari, Edge, Firefox, Opera, Chrome, and Brave can give you a good idea of whether the browser is the issue, and you really only need two or three of those at most. You can also try using incognito modes (though you have to log in again, of course), or you can use a safe mode version of a browser. Since it can be hard to figure out which of the million little plugins, extensions, and modules is causing the issue, trying different selections can eventually help you diagnose the problem.

Worse, sometimes, this is all temporary. It might be fine, then break, then be fine again in an hour, with nothing changed on your end. It’s just one of the many mysteries involved in the internet these days.

Your App is Out of Date

Similarly, if you’re posting from a mobile device and you’re using the LinkedIn app to do it, it’s not uncommon for there to be an update coming down the pipe that you need, but hasn’t been pushed to your device quite yet.

The LinkedIn App

App updates aren’t necessarily super common, but when they happen, they need to be applied right away, or you’ll start ending up with issues like your posts not posting.

Your Post Includes Emojis or Characters Not Supported in General

Here’s another one related to mobile devices, but it’s a bit harder to diagnose. When you’re typing up your post on an app or phone, you’re using a software keyboard in general. Using things like emojis or special characters in your post isn’t exactly uncommon, especially these days. When you go to post, though, something can end up messed up on the back end.

This happens because the special characters or emojis are device-specific, most likely in the Apple or Google ecosystem. When the post system tries to convert those into something usable on general internet or desktop devices, it can cause issues and look like weird code or spam, which triggers errors to stop the post and prevent abuse.

LinkedIn Emojis

I’m not generally a big fan of using emojis in posts in the first place, but when they can cause issues like this, it’s all the more reason to avoid using them at all.

Your API Access Token has Expired

The next couple of issues come if you’re using a third-party service of some sort to do your posting for you. These services generally need API access and authorization to function. However, there are two deadlines related to API tokens.

The first is annual. When you create an API token, that token lasts for a year. After that year passes, you will need to reauthorize in order to keep using the API.

LinkedIn API Access Token Expired

The second is two months. Access tokens last for 60 days before they expire. You can refresh them easily or generate new tokens and keep the access train rolling, but when one of those tokens expires, you’ll need to reauthorize them in order to get the app working again. This can be a bit of a hassle, depending on how reliant on these third-party apps you are!

Your API Access Token has Been Revoked

An extension of the previous section, API tokens can be revoked by the account, which can mess with the timelines.

LinkedIn Access Token Revoked

If you just re-authenticated but suddenly can’t post, consider checking if the API token is still valid; it’s possible it was revoked, either intentionally or accidentally.

Your Internet Connection Dropped

Another semi-common issue I see from time to time is just good old-fashioned internet issues. This happens most if you’re trying to write and post from a mobile device, but it can happen anywhere you’re reliant on something like wireless internet in your home or even a flaky ISP.

No Internet Connection

If you try to post but your internet connection drops out during the process, your post won’t go live, and you’ll have the Post Failed issue appear. Often, just trying again works out, and if it doesn’t, then you have to start digging through the other issues on this list.

How Common is Publishing Failure on LinkedIn?

Fortunately, the “Post Failed” issue isn’t actually all that common. It can crop up in strange circumstances, and it’s just common enough to be posted on Reddit and elsewhere, but it’s not so common that you have hundreds of replies about it. Generally, it’s edge cases and special circumstances that cause it, and you generally won’t run into these in your normal use of the platform.

LinkedIn Posting Failed

If you’re considering getting started with LinkedIn or getting back into it, now’s a great time to do so. Why not give it a try? After all, social media exposure is never a bad thing.

Written by James Parsons

James is the founder and CEO of Topicfinder, a purpose-built topic research tool for bloggers and content marketers. He also runs a content marketing agency, Content Powered, and writes for Forbes, Inc, Entrepreneur, Business Insider, and other large publications. He's been a content marketer for over 15 years and helps companies from startups to Fortune 500's get more organic traffic and create valuable people-first content.

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