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Instagram: Common Issues and their solutions

Find a quick solution for the most common Instagram issues

Sarah Nünlist avatar
Written by Sarah Nünlist
Updated this week

You can't connect a new hashtag

Issue: The hashtag has not been used on Instagram before.

You can't connect a hashtag to contentfry that has not been used on Instagram before.

Solution: Publish a post on Instagram using the hashtag

Simply publish a dummy post on Instagram before creating a connection for a brand-new hashtag.


Possible Issue: You may have exceeded the hashtag limitation of Instagram.

Each separate Business Account (Token) can search the Instagram API for up to 30 hashtags within a 7-day period.

It's important to note that the 30 hashtag searches are per Business Account (Token), not per application using that Account. This means that connecting a hashtag on a service like Hootsuite will count against the 30 searches, even on contentfry.


Possible Solutions:

  1. You might have more than one token available (e.g., from different accounts you manage). Make sure you distribute your Instagram Hashtag Connections evenly among all available tokens, ensuring you don't exceed 30 hashtags per token.

  2. Check all connected hashtags and delete the ones you are not actively using at the moment. It's important to note that after deleting the Hashtag Connection, it will take up to 7 days before you can add a new hashtag with that Account (Token).


After adding a new hashtag, no content is collected

Possible issue: The contents are older than 24 hours.

When adding a new Instagram hashtag Connection, contentfry can fetch Instagram posts published with this hashtag dating back to the past 24 hours. After the Hashtag Connection has been established on contentfry, there will be a continuous feed for the new hashtags.

Solution: Add missing hashtags contents manually

If there are specific contents you really want to show on your Social Wall but are missing from the hashtag feed, consider adding them manually using our Uploader Connection. Learn how to Embed a Content.



Certain Instagram posts are missing from your feed

Possible Issue: You may have exceeded the Rate Limitations of Instagram

Instagram only allows 200 requests an hour per token. Due to this rate limitation, some Connections may not receive all updates. You might be affected if

  • you have set up a large number of Instagram Connections 

  • you have a single token associated with a large number of Connections

  • you have connected high-volume hashtags (for e.g. #cats)

Possible Solutions

  1. You might have more than one token available (e.g., from different accounts you manage). Make sure you distribute your Instagram Hashtag Connections evenly among all available tokens.

  2. If you've connected any high-volume hashtags, such as #cats, we recommend using "Top Media" instead of "Recent Media". Please review your Instagram Hashtag Connection settings to reduce the amount of aggregated content. Refer to Step 5 in the "Adding an Instagram Connection" article for guidance.



Possible Issue: The user added a certain hashtag after publishing the post

If a user edits their post text after initially publishing it on Instagram and only adds your hashtag later, we will not be able to collect this post.

Solution: Add missing hashtags contents manually

If there are specific contents you really want to show on your Social Wall but are missing from the hashtag feed, consider adding them manually using our Uploader Connection. Learn how to Embed a Content.


Possible Issue: The user has set their account to private.

For data protection reasons, contentfry can only collect and display content that has been publicly published.

Solution: Content must be public

To resolve this issue, the user needs to make their content public. Please ask the user to adjust their privacy settings and re-publish the content to ensure it can be collected and displayed.


You can't connect a public Instagram Account (Public Content)

Possible issue: It's not a Professional Account (Business or Creator)

The Account you're trying to add may not be an Instagram Business Account. Public Content Connections only work for Professional Instagram Accounts (Business or Creator)

Solution: Set up an Instagram Basic Connection instead.

If you know the owner of the account, set up an Instagram Creator Connection instead.

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Possible issue: It's not a Public Account

The Account you're trying to add may not be a Public Account.

Solution: Ensure that the Account you're trying to connect is public.

To do this, log out of your personal Instagram Account and check if you can still view the contents of the Account you're attempting to connect.

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