Hold a Channel's Publish When Something Looks Wrong

A broken import can empty half a catalog in one go — and if the channel's next run publishes that, your ads go dark or start showing the wrong products before anyone notices. A monitor with the publish hold turned on acts as a safety net: when it triggers, affected channels keep their previously published feed live instead of publishing the suspicious new one. Nothing goes dark; the last good feed keeps serving until the problem clears.

Set it up#

1. Create a monitor that checks after each catalog import or after each channel run — the hold is only available on these two checks, because they're the moments where there's a publish to hold. (See Create a monitor.) A good starting point is the Channel loses products — hold the publish suggestion on the Monitoring page.
2. Set the condition that means "something is wrong" — for example Product count change % is less than -40. Don't leave it empty here: a hold with no condition holds every publish it watches, and never clears on its own. Renable still publishes such a monitor, with a note saying exactly that — its alert never clears either, and until you pause the monitor, remove the hold or add a condition, a feed only goes out through Publish on the alert.
3. Under Then, click + Add action and pick Hold the publish. While that action is on the monitor, its alert is always raised as an Error — a held publish is worth your immediate attention — so the alert's level is fixed at Error and says which row fixed it. You don't need Raise an alert on the list for this: a monitor that only holds the publish still raises an Error alert, Publish held by the monitor on the catalog or channel, whenever it holds.
4. Publish the monitor.

On any other check, Hold the publish still appears in the action list but can't be picked, and says why: there's no publish to hold unless the monitor runs after an import or a channel run.

A monitor on a catalog holds every channel that exports that catalog's products — a bad import is stopped before it reaches any destination. A monitor on a channel holds just that channel.

What you'll see while a publish is held#

• The channel page shows a Publish held chip next to its status.
• The channel's Activity tab shows the held run with the status Publish held, and its detail names the monitor. The previous feed stays live the whole time — the feed URL keeps serving the last good version.
• The monitor's Error alert appears on the dashboard and the affected catalog or channel, like any other alert — even if the monitor has no Raise an alert row.

How it clears#

The hold heals itself: the next import or channel run that passes the monitor's condition publishes normally and clears the alert. Fix the underlying problem — the feed source, the mapping, whatever shrank the numbers — and the next run goes out on its own. There's no approval queue and nothing to release manually.

Publishing anyway#

If you've looked at the data and it's genuinely fine — say the assortment really did halve because a season ended — you don't have to wait:

• Press Publish on the monitor's own alert — wherever you meet it, on the dashboard, on the project's Overview, on the channel's Activity tab or on the Monitoring page. Renable shows what that would publish and asks you to confirm. This is usually the quicker route: an alert about a catalog publishes every channel exporting that catalog in one go, and the alert names them before you confirm.
• Or press Publish on the channel page as usual. Renable tells you which monitor is holding the publish and that the previous feed stays live, and offers Publish anyway.
• Either way you publish that one run. It does not clear the alert — the monitor keeps checking, and the alert clears only when a check actually passes. If the monitor was right after all, the next run is held again.
• If another monitor is holding one of the same channels, publishing anyway goes past that hold too. Renable names the other monitor in the confirmation before you decide.

If a monitor holds publishes too eagerly, loosen its condition — or pause it with the switch on its card, which lifts the hold immediately.

Good to know#

• The hold protects the published feed. You can keep editing the channel, previewing, and regenerating while it's held.
• Archiving the alert does not lift the hold, and Renable won't let you archive an alert for a publish that is still held — dismissing it would leave the feed held with nothing on screen saying so. The ways out are Publish on the alert, fixing what the monitor is complaining about, or pausing the monitor.
• Pausing or archiving the monitor clears its alerts and lifts the hold right away.
• A monitor that holds the publish can also send a webhook, so another system hears about the hold the moment it starts: tick Triggered for the hold and Cleared for its release. On a monitor that watches channels, the held run's status in the message is blocked — Publish held. See Send monitor events to a webhook.
• Adding Hold the publish to a monitor that has already triggered doesn't turn its existing alerts into holds. The hold starts at the monitor's next check that triggers with the action on.
• Removing Hold the publish, or taking a catalog or channel out of the monitor's scope, lifts that monitor's holds as soon as you publish the change — the monitor's card and the channel page stop showing Publish held at once. Until the monitor's next check, its alert still offers Publish (which then simply publishes) and still can't be archived.
• If checking the monitor itself ever fails, publishing proceeds normally — a broken monitor never takes your feeds down.
• The hold decides before the new feed goes out, so a condition on Run status or Publish failed can't hold a publish — both are only known once the run has finished. Renable won't publish a monitor that holds the publish on either; without Hold the publish, its alert and emails can use them, after the run.