Occasionally when using our tool, you may run into errors for example during campaign creation or when trying to access a specific feature. Often these errors are quite self-explanatory, and the fix is easy to implement. As an example, the error message "Source Audience is Too Small: There aren’t enough people in your source audience. Please use an audience that includes at least 100 people." means just that: in order to create a lookalike audience, you must have a seed audience of at least 100 people.

However, sometimes the error message provided by us or Facebook may not be so obvious. We are constantly trying to improve our error communication in order to pinpoint specific issues more clearly, but in the meanwhile here is a list of some commonly asked about error messages and their traditional workarounds. The issues are divided based on where they are commonly encountered.

Creating or editing Facebook campaigns

Campaign processing fails with: Audience "#Adset Name#", Creative "Creative name": You don't have required permission to access this profile.

Common reason: The user account that was used to connect ad account has changed password and/or enabled/disabled 2FA. Alternatively, the same user account may [no longer] have access to respective Facebook and/or Instagram page.
Workaround: Double-check permissions to respective pages and update them, if required. If that does not help, try reconnecting the account on ad account settings page.

Upsync to Facebook failed: We couldn't find the picture on our servers. Please select it from the image library or re-upload it. If the picture exists in the library, make sure your user has access to the account that owns the picture.

Common reason: Common reasons for this error are visible in the message itself, namely that a creative is referencing an image that has been deleted from the image library, or the campaign containing the creative has been cloned from an account to which the current user does not have access rights. However, another less obvious reason is often behind this error: trying to add a carousel creative, but forgetting to add an image to one or more carousel cards.
Workaround: Reupload the used image to the account's image library, or alternatively if adding carousel creatives check that each carousel card has an image selected.

Got following errors: "Invalid parameter: Invalid Page Types for Objective: None of the page types selected is allowed for campaign's objective"

Common reason: While not obvious from the message itself, this error usually relates to trying to combine Audience Network placement and the Brand Awareness objective, which is not allowed by Facebook.
Workaround: Either remove the Audience Network placement or change your Facebook objective, whichever is less crucial to you for the campaign. You can read more about Facebook's allowed placement and objective combinations in the Facebook Ads Guide.

Failed to update: Upsync to Facebook failed: Got following errors: "Invalid parameter: Cannot Load Post: The post cannot be loaded, and this can be due to many reasons. For example, the post might not exist, or it exists but is blocked."

Common reason: There can be many reasons for this as mentioned in the error message, but often this is encountered when updating an adset in an existing campaign that includes an ad linked to a deleted post.
Workaround: Specify which post has been deleted from Facebook, and archive that ad before making the changes to the adset.

Got following errors: "Please reduce the amount of data you're asking for, then retry your request"

Common reason: This can occur for example when archiving a very large campaign, and simply means that the campaign in question is too large for the API to handle (contains a significant amount of ad sets/ads).
Workaround: Archive only parts of the campaign at a time, for example half of the ad sets, and then try to archive the campaign itself again.

Upsync to Facebook failed: Got following errors: "Invalid parameter: Error Loading Image: The ad image could not be loaded"

Common reason: Most likely this means that the image does not exist on the account. For example, the image may have been removed on Facebook's end.
Workaround: Reupload the image to Smartly.io's image library and try again.

"Upsync to Facebook failed: Got following errors: "Fatal: Account is not qualified to create a CPA ad: CPA ad cannot be created by this ad account."

Common reason: This occurs sometimes when trying to use CPA bidding. Facebook does not allow you to bid for an action that you don't have historical "proof of delivery" for, so either the account in question is very new and/or does not have previous delivery for the specified action.
Workaround: Change bidding event to Impressions for example.

"Failed to add creatives: Upsync to Facebook failed: Got following errors: "Invalid parameter: Creative and optimization_goal mismatch: The creative type contradicts to the optimization goal. The type of your creative has to be consistent with your optimization goal. Also please make sure your optimization goal is not NONE."

Common reason: Most often this occurs when optimizing for Website conversions or Link clicks, with an actual link directing outside of Facebook missing. So either there is no link or the link leads to a page within Facebook.
Workaround: Add the missing URL link and ensure it directs outside of Facebook. In addition, Video creatives using website clicks as an objective also require a CTA, so add this if it is missing.

Editing Facebook Ads Manager Originated Campaigns on Smartly or Smartly Originated Campaigns on Facebook

Recommendations We generally do not recommend the cross-platform editing of Facebook Originated Campaigns on Smartly and Vice Versa as the Facebook API (Which is Smartly Tool is built on top of) is quite different from the Native Ads Manager and can cause glitches or inconsistencies. However, if the edits are limited to Budget or Ad Status (Pause, Active, Delete) changes - it should be still work as per normal.

Website Custom Audiences

Got following errors: "(#2663) Terms of service has not been accepted. To accept, go to https:...

Common reason: In order to utilize Website Custom Audiences, you need to accept Facebook's WCA terms of service.
Workaround: Go to the link provided in the error message. And then wait for the information to be synced with smartly. You can check the status in respective ad account settings. Generally the update takes less than 30 minutes, but if it's been more than an hour or you are in a hurry, you can try using manual sync in the ad account settings. If that still does not help, please, contact support.

Targeting

Got the following errors: "Invalid parameter: Overlapping Geo Locations: You have overlapping locations specified in the geo_locations field. Your broader option will override the narrower option, please remove one to proceed."

Common reason: This occurs most often when trying to use city-based targeting, but also including the country in the targeting specifications. Only one of these is needed, by default the larger of the two (country) would override the city selection.
Workaround: Remove either the country or the city from the targeting specs.

Feed/catalog based campaigns

Feed Status: Facebook failed to process the dynamic feed. To rule out configuration issues, please review your ad template and your feed settings. Facebook reported the following while processing the products: Severity: fatal. Error: #[PRICE FIELD]# [CURRENCY FIELD] is incorrectly formatted

Common reason: You may see this error at the top of a feed campaign's page. This most often means that the currency has been included in the feed's price field and configured in the feed settings. This sends the price information to Facebook as for example "10.00 USD USD", which is invalid and the Facebook fails to process it.
Workaround: Either remove the currency from the feeds price field, or an easier method is to simply not select a currency in the feed settings.

"Permissions error: Permission Required to Associate Event Sources: You don't have enough permissions to associate event sources to the catalog."

Common reason: The Facebook authorizer of the account (NOTE: not the current user) does not have the required permissions in Business Manager to create DPA campaigns.
Workaround: Check the required permissions here, and make the required changes to permissions.

Ad Studies

Upsync to Facebook failed: Business manager is required for Ad Studies

Common reason: The logic behind the audience splits for Ad Studies requires a Business Manager to be connected to the account.
Workaround: Connect the account to a Business Manager under Settings → Account

Other

Ad account is currently disabled. Please contact your Facebook representative for more information.

Common reason: This is shown as a red notification at the top of the tool. While the cause of the error is clear (disabled ad account), the root cause cannot be investigated by Smartly.io as the possible trigger as well as the disabled status come directly from Facebook. Most often we have seen these being related to payment issues.
Workaround: Contact your Facebook representative to enquire about possible reasons and next steps.

Got the following errors: "An unexpected error has occurred. Please retry your request later."

Common reason: As the message says, this is an "unknown" issue on Facebook's end, and no clear answer for what is causing it can be given.
Workaround: Sometimes these errors are transient, and trying again in 10 minutes may clear the issue. However, the best thing here is to be in touch with our support chat (please include the request id), as we may be able to find some futher insights form our logs.