Troubleshooting & FAQ

Quick answers to the questions editors ask most often. If something isn’t covered here, reach out to the person who set up your portal.

My change isn’t showing up on the live site

The most common reason is that the change hasn’t been published yet — saving and publishing are two separate steps.

Did you publish? Clicking Save (or the small Save option in the dropdown) stores your changes as a draft. They only go live when you click Publish or Save & Publish. Check the toolbar: if it shows Publish, your content is saved but not yet live.
Is the build still running? After you publish, Netlify rebuilds your site, which typically takes two to four minutes. The toolbar shows Publishing (m:ss) in orange while it’s in progress, and turns green when done. Give it a moment before checking the live site.
Did the build fail? If the toolbar shows Publish failed in red, the rebuild didn’t complete. Try publishing again, or contact your site administrator.

For a full explanation of the publish sequence, see How changes go live.

I can’t log in

A few things to check:

Are you at the right URL? The editor lives at yoursite.com/edit. Visiting the main site address won’t show a sign-in screen.
Are you using the right sign-in method? Your site uses either a shared password or email-and-password login — whichever your developer set up. If you see only a Password field, enter the editor password you were given. If you see an Email and Password field, use the credentials from your invite.
Were you invited? If you received an invitation email, click the link in that email first. It takes you to a setup screen where you create your password before signing in for the first time.
Forgotten your password? On sites with email login, click Forgot password? beneath the password field to receive a reset link.
“You don’t have access to this site”? Access is controlled by your site administrator — contact them to have your account created or restored.

See Logging in for a full walkthrough.

My image won’t upload

Two things to check:

File format — the media library accepts JPEG, PNG, WebP, GIF, and most other common image formats, as well as video files. Unusual or proprietary formats may be rejected.
File size — files larger than 5 MB are not accepted. If your image is over the limit, compress or resize it first, then try again. (Your site administrator can adjust this limit if needed.) Large GIFs are converted to video as they upload, and large videos go to asset storage where your site has it — see Large GIFs.

When a file is rejected, you’ll see a notice explaining which file was too large or couldn’t be processed.

See Uploading images for more detail.

My GIF turned into a video

That’s expected for a GIF over the 5 MB limit: it’s converted to a looping, silent video as it uploads, which plays the same on the page and loads much faster. The notice after upload shows the size before and after. The original GIF isn’t kept.

If you see a notice instead:

“has see-through areas” — video can’t keep transparency, and your site has no asset storage to hold the GIF as-is. Shrink or shorten the GIF until it’s under the limit.
“This browser can’t convert it” — try desktop Chrome, Safari or Firefox, or convert the GIF to MP4 yourself first.
“still larger than the … limit after converting” — the GIF is too long or too large even as a video, including after a second, smaller conversion (tried when your site has no asset storage, or when the video is over the 200 MB upload limit). Shorten it or reduce its dimensions.

Sites with asset storage take transparent GIFs, and videos too large to save with the site, without these notices. See Large GIFs.

I edited the wrong section — how do I undo?

It depends on whether you’ve saved yet.

If you haven’t saved: click Discard Changes in the toolbar to throw away all unsaved edits and return to the last saved state. The editor will ask you to confirm before discarding.
If you saved but haven’t published: your change is in the repository but not live. You can open the section and edit it back to what it was, then save again. Alternatively, set the section to Draft status to hide it from visitors while you decide what to do.
Remember: nothing is visible to visitors until you publish. Saved-but-unpublished content gives you a window to review and correct before anything goes live.

See Saving your changes and Section status for more on how drafts and discarding work.

A section isn’t visible on the live site even after publishing

Check the section’s status. If a section is set to Draft or Archived, it won’t appear for visitors even after you publish.

Hover over the section to reveal its controls.
Look at the status pill in the section header — it shows the current status by name.
If it says Draft or Archived, click the pill and choose Live, then save and publish again.

See Section status for details on how each status behaves.