User Access Restricted on Instagram

As a publishing tool, Gain is here to help make sure all your posts go live on time. Sometimes, our system encounters vague or inexplicable errors because we depend on Meta's API to publish. Gain tries up to three times to publish. If the error persists, we'll send you a warning email and leave your post(s) in Scheduled status.

Whenever publishing fails, you'll see a description of the error in the Activity of the post.

Read on to learn more about this error and how to fix it.

Error Messages Returned by the Instagram API

Aside from "User access is restricted," there is another common error that occurs:

Instagram responded: "Error: Media upload has failed with error code 2207050 (Media id: 17975073533647348)"

These errors are two sides of the same coin. According to Meta's official documentation of error codes, these errors indicate the Instagram Professional account is inactive, checkpointed, or restricted. This means your account was flagged, and you're prompted to sign in to the Instagram app and complete "any actions" they require to re-enable your account.

According to this article, there are a few possible reasons:

Following/unfollowing a lot of people in a short period
Mass liking/commenting/messaging
Posting too much in a short period
Sharing inappropriate content
Minimum age restrictions
People signing in from different IP addresses or locations

Log in to Instagram

If you've experienced the error, please follow these steps:

Important: The error cannot be resolved by logging into the mobile app on a phone or other device. Instagram might prompt you to enter missing information, such as a birth date. If prompted for a birth date, please enter 18 or above.

Once you've entered the required information, go to Workspace Settings "⚙️" > Social Channels and refresh your channel's connection.

Log in to Meta Business Suite

Meta Business Suite is another place to confirm missing information on your profile that might be causing Instagram to restrict posting.

Go to business.facebook.com and switch to the page connected to the affected Instagram account.
Click "Settings" on the left corner of the bottom of the page.
Click on the user you're logged in as (shown as "You")

Click "Manage" next to the IG account.

If Meta requires you to "Log In" on the page, complete the login request to resolve the issue. You don't need to do anything else if there are no requests from Meta on the screen, as shown below:

To find the root cause of some of these errors, you might need to take more than these steps and do more troubleshooting or investigation. If you still have trouble posting after following these steps, please contact us! Our Support team is here to help you.

Is Gain a third-party app that could result in my account being restricted?

No, using Gain does not affect your Facebook or Instagram accounts in any way that could result in your accounts being restricted. Although we are not official Meta Business Partners, Gain uses officially-sanctioned Instagram, Facebook, and Threads APIs and consistently adheres to best practices set by Meta for those APIs. Additionally:

Gain undergoes a thorough app review process. Every permission that Gain requests from Facebook, Instagram, and Threads is meticulously reviewed by Facebook, including a representative from Meta logging into our system and testing our platform to ensure compliance with their acceptable use policy.
Gain undergoes an annual data protection assessment from Meta, where we must provide highly detailed evidence of how we read, store, and use data from the Facebook/Instagram/Threads platform in our systems. The process is very rigorous, and Meta fully certifies us in this respect.

When you encounter any "account restricted" errors, it indicates that Meta's automated systems have flagged your account. The reasons for this flagging could be diverse:

The type of content being posted.
Posting the same or similar content across multiple channels simultaneously (considered spammy behavior by Facebook).
Following or unfollowing numerous accounts in a short time or engaging in behavior regarded as "inauthentic" by Instagram.
People are signing in from different IP addresses or locations.

Meta's automated systems trigger these flags and can sometimes be set off in error. The ban may restrict posting from third-party apps, but direct posting from the FB/IG UI might not be affected. Sometimes, the ban applies to all Meta properties owned by the same business account; other times, it may only apply to a single Instagram account.

The only guaranteed way to resolve it is to wait 24-48 hours for the flag to be lifted.

Please contact us through our Support widget or at support@gainapp.com if you have any additional questions.