Your Facebook catalog is the backbone of your dynamic advertising strategy, powering everything from retargeting campaigns to personalized product recommendations. When it works seamlessly, it drives conversions and maximizes your return on ad spend. But when something goes wrong? Your campaigns grind to a halt, your products disappear from ads, and potential revenue slips through your fingers.
If you've ever logged into Facebook Business Manager only to find error messages, disapproved products, or mysterious sync failures, you're not alone. This comprehensive facebook catalog troubleshooting guide will walk you through the most common catalog issues ecommerce businesses face and provide actionable solutions to get your campaigns back on track quickly.
Whether you're dealing with product disapprovals, feed sync problems, or data quality issues, this guide covers everything you need to diagnose, fix, and prevent catalog problems that could be costing you sales. Let's dive into the systematic approach that will transform you from frustrated to in control of your Facebook catalog management.
Before you can troubleshoot effectively, you need to know where to look. Your Catalog Health Dashboard is mission control for identifying and understanding catalog issues. Located in Commerce Manager, this dashboard provides real-time insights into your catalog's performance and flags problems that need your attention.
Access your catalog diagnostics by navigating to Commerce Manager, selecting your catalog, and clicking on the "Diagnostics" tab. Here, you'll find a comprehensive overview of your catalog health, including the number of active products, items with issues, and overall catalog status. The dashboard color-codes issues by severity: red for critical problems that prevent products from showing, yellow for warnings that might affect performance, and green indicating healthy products.
Pay particular attention to the "Items with Issues" section, which breaks down problems by category. This categorization helps you prioritize which issues to tackle first. Critical errors that prevent products from being shown in ads should always take precedence over warnings that simply limit distribution.
Facebook catalog error messages can seem cryptic at first, but they follow predictable patterns. Common status indicators include "Active" (product is live and available), "Pending" (under review), "Rejected" (policy violation), and "Error" (technical problem preventing processing). Each rejected or error status comes with specific feedback explaining what went wrong.
Understanding these messages is crucial for effective troubleshooting. For example, "Missing required field" tells you exactly which product attribute is absent, while "Policy violation: misleading claims" indicates content that doesn't comply with Facebook's Commerce Policies. Download the full error report from your diagnostics page to see detailed explanations for each affected product.
Product disapprovals are among the most frustrating catalog problems because they directly prevent your items from appearing in ads. The good news? Most disapprovals stem from a handful of common issues that are straightforward to fix once you understand Facebook's requirements.
Facebook's Commerce Policies are strict, and violations result in immediate product disapprovals. The most common policy issues include prohibited products (weapons, tobacco, adult products), before-and-after claims in health and beauty products, and misleading pricing information. Review Facebook's Commerce Policies thoroughly and compare them against your product catalog.
If you're selling products in regulated categories like supplements or healthcare items, ensure your descriptions avoid making medical claims or promising specific health outcomes. Replace phrases like "cures diabetes" with compliant language such as "supports healthy blood sugar levels." For beauty products, remove any before-and-after imagery from your product images and avoid exaggerated claims about results.
Image-related disapprovals often occur when product images don't meet Facebook's technical or quality standards. Your images must be at least 500 x 500 pixels, though 1024 x 1024 pixels is recommended for optimal display across all placements. Images should clearly show the product without excessive text overlay—Facebook's 20% text rule applies to product images in catalogs.
Additionally, avoid using placeholder images, watermarked photos, or images with promotional badges like "Sale" or "New." Your product image should accurately represent what the customer will receive. If you're experiencing widespread image disapprovals, audit your image feed to ensure all URLs are accessible, images load properly, and file formats are supported (JPG and PNG work best).
Your product titles and descriptions must be accurate, relevant, and free from prohibited content. Avoid using all caps, excessive punctuation (like "Amazing!!!"), or promotional language in titles. Descriptions should accurately represent the product without making unsubstantiated claims or including irrelevant keywords for SEO stuffing.
Facebook's algorithm flags titles and descriptions that appear spammy or misleading. If multiple products are being disapproved for content issues, review your product data feed template and remove any problematic patterns. Ensure titles clearly identify what the product is, and descriptions provide useful information about features, materials, and specifications rather than marketing hype.
Feed sync failures prevent your catalog from updating with your latest product information, pricing, and inventory levels. When your feed won't sync, your ads may show outdated information or products that are no longer available, leading to poor customer experiences and wasted ad spend.
Start by checking your feed upload method. If you're using a scheduled feed URL, verify that the URL is still accessible and hasn't changed. Test the feed URL in your browser—it should download a properly formatted file (CSV, TSV, or XML). If the URL returns an error or requires authentication, Facebook can't access it to update your catalog.
For platform integrations (Shopify, WooCommerce, BigCommerce), check that the connection is still active and authorized. Sometimes app permissions expire or get revoked during platform updates. Navigate to your ecommerce platform's app settings and verify that the Facebook integration has all necessary permissions to access product data, images, and inventory information.
Feed format errors occur when your product data doesn't match Facebook's expected structure. Common formatting issues include incorrect delimiters (using commas in a tab-separated file), missing headers, or improperly escaped special characters. Download Facebook's feed template and compare it against your feed structure to ensure column names and data types match exactly.
Use Facebook's Feed Debug Tool to validate your feed before uploading. This tool identifies formatting errors, missing required fields, and data quality issues before they cause sync failures. Pay special attention to required fields: id, title, description, availability, condition, price, link, and image_link. Every product in your feed must include these fields with valid data.
If you have a large catalog (10,000+ products), you might experience upload timeouts or partial sync failures. Break large feeds into smaller batches or use Facebook's Catalog API for more reliable uploads of extensive product inventories. The API handles large catalogs more efficiently and provides better error reporting for individual product issues.
Alternatively, optimize your feed file size by compressing images before including URLs, removing unnecessary columns, and ensuring your feed only includes products you actually want to advertise. A leaner feed uploads faster and reduces the chance of timeout errors during processing.
Even when your feed uploads successfully, data quality issues can prevent products from performing well in ads or cause them to be disapproved. This facebook catalog troubleshooting guide emphasizes that data quality is just as important as feed connectivity.
Required attributes must be present and properly formatted for every product. If products are flagged for missing attributes, audit your feed to ensure each required field contains valid data. Common mistakes include leaving price fields empty for out-of-stock items (use "0.00" instead), providing invalid URLs that return 404 errors, or using relative URLs instead of absolute URLs for images and product links.
Optional attributes like brand, color, size, and material significantly improve ad performance and should be included whenever possible. These attributes enable better product matching for dynamic ads and improve the customer experience by providing detailed product information upfront. Review your product database and map as many optional attributes as you can accurately provide.
Price formatting errors are surprisingly common and can cause products to be disapproved or display incorrectly. Always include the currency code in your price field (e.g., "29.99 USD" not just "29.99"). Ensure decimal separators match your locale settings—use periods for US pricing (19.99) and commas for European pricing (19,99) as appropriate for your target market.
If you're running sales or promotions, use the sale_price field instead of modifying the regular price field. This allows Facebook to show both the original and sale price, which can improve click-through rates. Make sure your sale_price is lower than your regular price, or Facebook will flag this as an error. Include sale_price_effective_date to specify when the sale pricing is valid.
Inventory sync problems lead to ads promoting out-of-stock products, creating frustrated customers and wasted ad spend. Your availability field must accurately reflect current stock status using one of three values: "in stock," "out of stock," or "preorder." Update this field in real-time or at least daily to prevent advertising unavailable products.
If you're using a platform integration, verify that inventory sync is enabled and functioning correctly. Some integrations require specific settings to be activated for real-time inventory updates. For manual feed uploads, implement an automated process that generates fresh feed files with current inventory levels at regular intervals, ideally every few hours for fast-moving products.
Catalog sets allow you to organize products into logical groups for targeted advertising, but configuration issues can result in empty sets or products appearing in the wrong campaigns. Understanding how to properly structure and troubleshoot catalog sets is essential for effective campaign management.
If your catalog set shows zero products or fewer products than expected, review your filter rules. Catalog sets use filters based on product attributes—if your filter criteria are too restrictive or reference attributes that don't exist in your feed, the set will be empty. Common mistakes include filtering by custom labels that aren't actually in your product data or using exact match filters when partial match would be more appropriate.
Test your filter logic by starting broad and gradually adding restrictions. For example, if filtering by category isn't working, verify that the product_type or google_product_category field in your feed exactly matches the values you're filtering for. Remember that filters are case-sensitive and must match your feed data precisely.
When products appear in multiple catalog sets unintentionally, or are excluded from sets where they should appear, you likely have conflicting filter rules. Review all your catalog sets to ensure filter logic doesn't create unintended overlaps or gaps. Use the "AND" and "OR" operators carefully—"AND" requires all conditions to be true, while "OR" requires only one condition to be true.
For complex product organization, use custom labels in your feed to explicitly tag products for specific catalog sets. This approach is more reliable than trying to construct elaborate filter rules based on multiple attributes. You can assign up to five custom labels per product (custom_label_0 through custom_label_4), giving you flexible categorization options.
Sometimes your catalog is technically healthy, but your dynamic ads aren't performing as expected. These performance issues often stem from catalog configuration rather than outright errors, requiring a different troubleshooting approach focused on optimization rather than fixing broken elements.
If only a small percentage of your catalog products are showing in dynamic ads, examine your product set configuration and audience targeting. Dynamic ads show products based on user behavior and interest—if your audience is too narrow or your pixel isn't capturing enough events, Facebook has limited data to match products to users.
Expand your product coverage by creating broader catalog sets, implementing more comprehensive pixel events across your website, and ensuring your product IDs in the pixel match the IDs in your catalog exactly. Even small discrepancies like "PROD-123" versus "prod-123" prevent Facebook from connecting user behavior to catalog products.
When dynamic ads show irrelevant products to users, the issue usually lies in product categorization or insufficient behavioral data. Improve product recommendations by ensuring your product_type and google_product_category fields accurately reflect what each product is. These fields help Facebook understand product relationships and show relevant alternatives when specific viewed items aren't suitable for retargeting.
Additionally, verify that your pixel is firing the correct events with accurate parameters. ViewContent events should include the specific product ID, AddToCart events should capture the exact items added, and Purchase events should list all products in the transaction. This behavioral data trains Facebook's algorithm to make better product recommendations.
Reactive troubleshooting is necessary, but proactive prevention is better. Implementing systematic catalog management practices dramatically reduces the frequency and severity of catalog issues, keeping your campaigns running smoothly and minimizing emergency firefighting.
Schedule weekly catalog health checks to catch issues before they impact campaign performance. Review your Diagnostics dashboard for new errors or warnings, check that your feed sync is completing successfully, and spot-check random products to ensure data accuracy. Create a checklist that includes verifying image URLs still work, prices are current, and inventory levels are accurate.
Set up automated alerts for catalog errors through Facebook Business Manager notifications. Configure these alerts to notify you immediately when critical issues occur, such as feed sync failures or sudden spikes in product disapprovals. Early detection allows you to resolve problems before they significantly impact your advertising performance.
Establish data quality standards for your product feed and enforce them at the source. If you're pulling product data from an inventory management system or ecommerce platform, implement validation rules that prevent incomplete or improperly formatted data from entering your feed in the first place. This upstream quality control is more efficient than constantly fixing feed errors after they occur.
Document your feed specifications, including required and optional fields, formatting requirements, and acceptable values for each attribute. Share these specifications with everyone who manages product data in your organization to ensure consistency. When adding new products, verify they meet all feed requirements before publishing them to your catalog.
Facebook regularly updates its Commerce Policies and catalog requirements. Subscribe to Facebook Business updates and regularly review policy documentation to stay informed about changes that might affect your catalog. When policies change, proactively audit your catalog for potential issues rather than waiting for products to be disapproved.
Join Facebook's official communities and forums for ecommerce businesses to learn about policy changes and troubleshooting strategies from other merchants. These communities often provide early warnings about emerging issues and share solutions before official documentation is updated.
When standard troubleshooting doesn't resolve your catalog issues, these advanced techniques can help you diagnose and fix complex problems that aren't immediately obvious from error messages or the diagnostics dashboard.
The Catalog API provides programmatic access to your catalog data and detailed error information that isn't always visible in the user interface. Use API calls to retrieve comprehensive product status information, including specific validation errors, policy violation details, and processing history. This granular data helps pinpoint exactly what's wrong with problematic products.
Implement API-based monitoring to track catalog health metrics over time. By logging API responses, you can identify patterns in errors, track resolution effectiveness, and detect recurring issues that might indicate systematic problems with your feed generation or product data management processes.
Facebook maintains detailed logs of feed processing activities, including which products were added, updated, or removed during each sync. Access these logs through the Data Sources section of your catalog settings to understand exactly what happened during feed uploads. Processing logs reveal timing issues, partial upload failures, and product-level errors that might not appear in the main diagnostics interface.
Compare processing logs across multiple feed uploads to identify whether issues are one-time occurrences or persistent problems. If the same products fail repeatedly, the issue likely stems from the source data rather than temporary connectivity or processing glitches.
When troubleshooting complex catalog issues, create a test catalog with a minimal set of products—perhaps 10-20 items that represent different product types and configurations. This controlled environment allows you to isolate variables and test solutions without affecting your production catalog and active campaigns.
Use your test catalog to experiment with different feed formats, attribute configurations, and upload methods. Once you identify what works, apply those solutions to your full catalog with confidence. This approach is particularly valuable when migrating to new feed formats or implementing significant catalog restructuring.
Products typically clear review within 24-48 hours, but delays can occur during high-volume periods or if your products are in categories requiring manual review (like healthcare or supplements). If products remain pending beyond 72 hours, check that your images are clear and policy-compliant, your descriptions don't contain prohibited claims, and your business account is verified. You can also submit a support request through Commerce Manager to expedite review if the delay is impacting active campaigns.
Even if image URLs load in your browser, Facebook's servers might encounter access issues. Common causes include: SSL certificate problems (ensure your site uses valid HTTPS), server authentication requirements that block Facebook's crawlers, geographic restrictions that prevent access from Facebook's data centers, or server timeouts for large images. Test your image URLs using Facebook's Sharing Debugger tool to see exactly what Facebook's servers encounter. Consider hosting critical product images on a CDN with no access restrictions for more reliable availability.
Catalog-wide disapprovals usually indicate either a policy violation in your account settings or a technical issue with your feed format. First, check your Commerce Manager notifications for specific policy violation messages. If your business was flagged for policy issues, you'll need to request a review and potentially provide documentation proving compliance. For technical issues, verify your feed is still accessible, properly formatted, and hasn't been corrupted. Check recent changes to your feed generation process or website that might have introduced systematic errors. If you can't identify the cause, download a fresh copy of your feed and validate it using Facebook's Feed Debug Tool before contacting support.
Products must meet several criteria to appear in dynamic ads beyond just being approved in your catalog. Verify that: the products are included in the catalog set connected to your ad campaign, your pixel is firing correctly with matching product IDs, the products have sufficient behavioral data (views, adds to cart) to trigger retargeting, and the products aren't being filtered out by campaign targeting settings. Also check that your product availability is set to "in stock" and pricing is current. Use Facebook's Ad Library to preview which products are eligible for your dynamic ad templates.
Price mismatches violate Facebook's policies and can result in disapprovals. These typically occur when: your feed isn't updating frequently enough to reflect price changes, you're running sales without updating the sale_price field, there's a delay between feed generation and upload, or your ecommerce platform integration isn't syncing prices correctly. Implement more frequent feed updates (ideally every few hours), ensure your feed generation pulls real-time pricing from your database, and verify that any price transformation logic in your feed template is working correctly. For platform integrations, check that price sync is enabled and test by manually changing a price to confirm it updates in your catalog within the expected timeframe.
Rather than removing seasonal products from your catalog entirely (which loses their performance history), update the availability field to "out of stock" during off-season periods. This keeps products in your catalog but prevents them from showing in ads. When the season returns, update availability back to "in stock" and your ads will automatically resume. For products with known seasonal schedules, you can use catalog sets with availability filters to create seasonal collections, making it easy to activate or deactivate entire product groups. Consider setting up automated rules in your inventory system to update availability based on stock levels, ensuring your catalog always reflects current product status.
This situation typically occurs when Facebook can't match products in your feed to existing catalog items. The most common cause is product ID mismatches—if your feed uses different IDs than what's already in your catalog, Facebook treats them as new products rather than updates. Verify that the "id" field in your feed exactly matches the product IDs already in your catalog (including case sensitivity and any prefixes or suffixes). If you need to change your ID structure, you'll need to delete the old catalog and create a new one, or use the Catalog API to update product IDs individually. Also check that your feed's update method is set correctly—"replace" mode overwrites all products, while "update" mode only modifies existing items.
Facebook crawls your product landing pages and compares the information to your catalog data. Discrepancies in title, price, availability, or images can trigger this error. Ensure your catalog data exactly matches what appears on your website—if your site shows a sale price, your catalog should use the sale_price field. For availability, your website's stock status must match your feed's availability field. Image URLs should point to the primary product image displayed on your site. If you use dynamic pricing or personalized content, implement structured data markup (Schema.org Product markup) on your pages to provide Facebook with consistent product information regardless of user-specific variations.
Mastering the facebook catalog troubleshooting guide outlined above transforms catalog management from a reactive headache into a proactive advantage. While catalog issues are inevitable in ecommerce, systematic troubleshooting and preventive maintenance minimize their impact on your advertising performance and revenue.
Remember that most catalog problems fall into predictable categories: policy violations, data quality issues, feed connectivity problems, and configuration errors. By understanding these categories and following the diagnostic approaches in this guide, you can quickly identify and resolve issues before they significantly impact your campaigns. Regular catalog audits, quality standards, and staying current with Facebook's requirements prevent the majority of problems from occurring in the first place.
Your Facebook catalog is a living system that requires ongoing attention and optimization. Invest time in understanding how your catalog works, implement robust data management processes, and use the tools Facebook provides to monitor and maintain catalog health. The payoff is substantial: dynamic ads that consistently perform, campaigns that run smoothly, and more time focused on growth rather than firefighting technical issues.
Ready to take your Facebook advertising to the next level? Start by implementing the preventive measures outlined in this guide, and bookmark this troubleshooting resource for quick reference when issues arise. Your future self—and your advertising ROI—will thank you.
Raúl Galera is the Growth Lead at ReferralCandy, where they’ve helped 30,000+ eCommerce brands drive sales through referrals and word-of-mouth marketing. Over the past 8+ years, Raúl has worked hands-on with DTC merchants of all sizes (from scrappy Shopify startups to household names) helping them turn happy customers into revenue-driving advocates. Raúl’s been featured on dozens of top eCommerce podcasts, contributed to leading industry publications, and regularly speaks about customer acquisition, retention, and brand growth at industry events.
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