How to fix Missed schedule in WordPress – in one minute

Today I encountered a bit unusual issue in one of my WordPress blogs. Post, which was scheduled to be published today, did not show up despite the fact that scheduled time has passed few hours ago.

When I opened WordPress posts in admin panel, I was greeted with a notification Missed schedule. Weird logic if the time has passed, but anyway – after opening the post I thought I’ll fix it in a second. But updating post, even switching to Draft and republishing it again did not work. And there were no other tools visible in the post settings to fix the Missed schedule issue.

Why WordPress shows Missed schedule error

When I checked online about the issue, it seems that it can happen in few occasions:

• Something’s VERY wrong with a WordPress database. But it’s rarely the case.

• Some plugin messed up. That may also be tricky to fix, depending on the plugin.

• WordPress time settings (timezone) were changed, after the post was scheduled.

This is exactly what happened in my case. Luckily the fix does not require any coding or messing with the database.

How to get rid of Missed schedule error in WordPress, and publish the post

Solution for this issue is a bit unusual, but it definitely works.

• Go to Posts >> All posts, and locate the post that shows Missed Schedule.

• Put a mouse cursor over the post, and hit Quick Edit.

• Once you’re in Quick Edit mode, change post status from Scheduled to Published.

Now your post should be published, and post should be visible to website visitors. If it’s still not visible, you should clean cache in your WordPress site.

No idea why this switch can not be done when editing the post. Or maybe it can, but it’s placed somewhere where it’s quite hard to spot.