Why isn't my Discord announcement being published?

Where do I start?

Discord never publishes a message on its own: it reaches following servers only once someone, or a bot, presses Publish.

No bot publishing for you yet? Auto Publisher (auto-publisher.gg) publishes every message posted in the channels you choose. Setup is covered in How to auto-publish announcement channel messages.

Already using Auto Publisher? Run /ap overview in your server. It lists every enabled channel, says which ones are not publishing and names the permissions they are missing. The dashboard shows the same, with a Fix button on each broken channel. Then go through the checks below in order.

Is the channel enabled?

Auto Publisher only publishes in channels you enable. Run /ap enable and pick the channel, or switch it on under Channels in the dashboard. A channel you never enabled is left alone.

Does the bot have its three permissions?

The bot needs three permissions in the channel itself: View Channel, Send Messages, Manage Messages. Manage Messages is the one most often missing: Discord lets members publish their own messages with Send Messages, but publishing anyone else's needs Manage Messages (Discord: Announcement Channel FAQ). A channel or category permission that denies one of them overrides the role's server-wide permissions, so check the channel's own Permissions tab:

Is the channel paused?

A paused channel keeps its setup but doesn't publish. /ap overview and the dashboard list paused channels and say why. There are two causes, both on the Free plan:

• Over the channel cap. The Free plan publishes 5 channels per server. Turn another channel off and enable this one again, or get Premium for unlimited channels.
• It has a filter. Filters are a Premium feature, so a filtered channel is paused on the Free plan rather than publishing everything. Get Premium, or remove the filter and enable the channel again.

Did a filter skip it?

On Premium, a channel with a filter only publishes messages that match its rule. Open the rule with /ap filters or the dashboard's Filters tab and check the message against each condition. See How to auto-publish only some messages.

Has the channel hit Discord's hourly limit?

Discord lets each channel publish 10 messages per hour. On the Free plan, messages past it are not published. On Premium, they are published once the limit resets. See How to publish messages past Discord's limit.

Is it a message that can't be published?

Auto Publisher skips three kinds of message, because Discord doesn't allow publishing (crossposting) them or they are already out:

• System messages, such as pin notices.
• Messages already published, by a member or another bot.
• Messages that arrived from a channel your server follows. They were published at their source and can't be published again.

Was it posted before the channel was enabled?

Auto Publisher publishes messages as they are posted. A message posted before the channel was enabled, before the permissions were fixed or while the bot was offline is not published later. Press Publish on it by hand.

Is it a link waiting for its preview?

A message with a link that has no preview yet is held 5 seconds so followers get the preview. It is published after that.

Still not publishing?

Ask in the support server with the channel and roughly when the message was posted. For how Publish and Follow work on Discord's side, see Discord crossposting explained.