Scheduled actions not running: a checklist
Scheduled actions only run when a few conditions are all true at once. Work through this list, and one of them will be the cause.
Why
The Actions Queue does not run on a server somewhere. Growbot saves your schedule to your Growbot account, but every action is carried out by your own browser, in an open Instagram tab, logged in as the right account. That keeps your activity on your own connection, and it also means the queue simply waits whenever one of those pieces is missing.
Actions that miss their time are not lost. They wait, and Growbot asks what to do with them the next time it is able to run.
How to use it
- Are you signed in to Growbot? Open Settings → Growbot Account. If it shows Sign In / Register, sign in. Without it, Growbot cannot fetch your scheduled actions.
- Is an Instagram tab open? At least one instagram.com tab has to be open. It does not need to be the tab you are looking at, and the Growbot panel can be closed.
- Is it the right Instagram account? Each action belongs to the account that scheduled it. If the Log shows ignored (logged in as @...), switch to the matching account.
- If active hours are on, is it inside them? With Only run actions during active hours checked in Settings → Active hours, actions wait outside Start and End (your computer's clock). The badge on the Actions Queue tab says when they resume, and each held action shows Waiting · runs with a time.
- Is the queue paused? If the switch on the Actions Queue tab reads Actions Paused, switch it back to Actions Enabled. A pause stays on until you do. Growbot also postpones actions by itself after an Instagram rate limit, and the Log says so with a postponed to time or a note that pending actions were rescheduled.
- Is your computer awake? A sleeping computer runs nothing. Change your power settings if you want actions to run while you are away from the desk.
- Is the browser putting the tab to sleep? Keep Keep Instagram tabs running in the background checked in Settings → Instagram behavior. In Chrome, also open Settings → Performance, find Always keep these sites active, and add
www.instagram.com. - Is your trial or subscription active? When it ends, scheduled actions stop until you subscribe, or re-link an existing subscription in Settings.
When you see the past-due dialog
If Growbot finds several actions that missed their time by more than ten minutes, it asks what to do with them:
- Redistribute All Pending spreads every pending action across your active hours again, following your actions-per-day and minimum-delay rules. Choose this if you still want all of them to run.
- Skip Missed deletes only the past-due actions and leaves the rest on schedule.
If this dialog keeps appearing even though your computer was awake, the browser is almost certainly sleeping the tab. Go back to step 7.
Tips
- A backlog does not run all at once. Growbot sends one action at a time and spaces out catch-up work, so clearing a pile of missed actions takes a while on purpose.
- Turn on Show browser notifications for scheduled actions in Settings → Instagram behavior if you want a desktop notification each time an action runs.
- Changed your active hours? Growbot offers to move actions that no longer fit. Choose Redistribute into active hours.