Possible Pending Purgatory Fix

[SmilingLez]

@Manu @Laurel


I’m posting this publicly for transparency. Too many authors are being told the problem is on their end, and it isn’t. This is a reproducible Level 1 bug in the story submission pipeline (aka Pending Purgatory), and I want it documented in the open so authors stop blaming themselves.

The reproduction path is consistent. A story is submitted and rejected. The author edits and resubmits, and the resubmission may become permanently stuck in pending. If the story is rejected again and resubmitted again, it may become stuck again. Same issue with a newly submitted story

I currently have six stories in this pending state. Poetry and non‑story submissions behave normally, so the issue is specific to the story submission logic.

The likely cause is a database flag that isn’t resetting on rejection. A field such as resubmit_count or status_id is retaining the wrong value, causing the resubmit action to write to a row that never triggers moderation. This explains why some first‑time submissions move through the queue while some first-time submissions and resubmissions do not.

The possible fix is straightforward from a database perspective. Query the submissions table for rows where last_action is ‘resubmit’, status is ‘pending’, and days_pending is greater than two. This isolates only the stuck resubmissions without touching anything legitimately awaiting review. Each of these entries can then be checked for content validity and manually moved into the moderation queue or reset to a clean ‘submitted’ state. After that, the resubmit handler needs to be patched so the internal moderation flag resets properly on every resubmission.

If you want, I can text you my 6 stuck stories IDs.

Thanks.

 

[Britva415]

Too many authors are being told the problem is on their end

By who?

Are you referring to the "72 hours?" announcement?

Anyway:

The reproduction path is consistent. A story is submitted and rejected. The author edits and resubmits, and the resubmission may become permanently stuck in pending.

Well, that's one reproduction path. This doesn't account for stories which get stuck in "permanently pending" without an initial rejection. Because, that's a thing, too. With no apparent consistent reproduction path: According to many (seemingly most) of the reports, it can just happen to stories which never got rejections.

 

[SmilingLez]

Well, that's one reproduction path. This doesn't account for stories which get stuck in "permanently pending" without an initial rejection. Because, that's a thing, too. With no apparent consistent reproduction path: According to many (seemingly most) of the reports, it can just happen to stories which never got rejections.

I covered that pathway

This explains why some first‑time submissions move through the queue while some first-time submissions and resubmissions do not.

 

[SmilingLez]

@Manu @Laurel


I’m posting this publicly for transparency. Too many authors are being told the problem is on their end, and it isn’t. This is a reproducible Level 1 bug in the story submission pipeline (aka Pending Purgatory), and I want it documented in the open so authors stop blaming themselves.

The reproduction path is consistent. A story is submitted and rejected. The author edits and resubmits, and the resubmission may become permanently stuck in pending. If the story is rejected again and resubmitted again, it may become stuck again. I currently have six stories in this state. Poetry and non‑story submissions behave normally, so the issue is specific to the story submission logic.

The likely cause is a database flag that isn’t resetting on rejection. A field such as resubmit_count or status_id is retaining the wrong value, causing the resubmit action to write to a row that never triggers moderation. This explains why some first‑time submissions move through the queue while some first-time submissions and resubmissions do not.

The possible fix is straightforward from a database perspective. Query the submissions table for rows where last_action is ‘resubmit’, status is ‘pending’, and days_pending is greater than two. This isolates only the stuck resubmissions without touching anything legitimately awaiting review. Each of these entries can then be checked for content validity and manually moved into the moderation queue or reset to a clean ‘submitted’ state. After that, the resubmit handler needs to be patched so the internal moderation flag resets properly on every resubmission.

If you want, I can text you my 6 stuck stories IDs.

Thanks.

I deleted two of my stories and posted them elsewhere. So now I have four stories stuck in pending purgatory

 

[Capt_Roger]

The trigger also seems to be blocking the author from making any further submissions, period.

In practice, even deleting everything from my pending file and then submitting anew isn’t a workaround.

 

[SmilingLez]

My earliest submitted story (4 stories total) in pending purgatory is May 4th 2026. Any update on this bug? @Manu

 

[RedWanderer95]

i submitted a story in a word doc. It went up quick. Like in a day. Maybe that goes up faster for some computerry internety reason? I have no idea.

 

[SmilingLez]

i submitted a story in a word doc. It went up quick. Like in a day. Maybe that goes up faster for some computerry internety reason? I have no idea.

Some people like yourself have no issues, and other people like me get stuck in pending purgatory - no rhyme no reason; which is why I offered a possible solution.

It appears that if one story gets stuck in pending purgatory, the chances of additional stories getting stuck in pending purgatory increases.

The closest analogy I can think of is the piling up of feces in a toilet, eventually the toilet won't flush. In order to get the toilet to flush again, something needs to be done otherwise the toilet will stay clogged for eternity

 

[SmilingLez]

Any update?

 

[SmilingLez]

@Manu

A picture is worth a thousand words. The two stories with Approved in the title (in your face humorous (to me) satire) were my test stories, sort of like sending the canary into the coal mine to see if there are any survivors, and as you can see there are none. Seems like the database flag associated with my account has never reset after an initial rejection of a story that was too short followed by an edit and resubmission (under 750 words. My word counter showed 750 whereas yours 742)

I also deleted my two non-erotic sfw science fiction flash fiction stories with even longer pending dates (late April) and posted them elsewhere. FWIW, I have never used AI to write any stories.

 

[SmilingLez]

@Manu


It looks like my two recent test stories were sent back at exactly the same time with the identical message offering no reason but instead telling me to post my stories in the Forum. That is against your own rules. And as you can see, there is no checklist. This looks like an automatically generated antiquated message that you use when you can find no valid reason to reject a story,
My other three stories remain in pending purgatory. This is the message

-----

Dear Writer,

Thank you for your submission to Literotica. We appreciate the time and effort you've taken to write a story and submit it to our site . However, we've found that we cannot post your submission in its current form. The checklist below may help you in re-examining your manuscript.

This is better suited to our forum: http://forum.literotica.com/
Please feel free to re-submit the story after a Volunteer Editor has examined it, or after you've made revisions. You can find a list of Volunteer Editors here.

Please consult our Writer's Resources section and make sure you read our submission guidelines.
If you have any questions on these, please let us know.

Thanks for your time, and look forward to reading you again!

Laurel & Manu
Literotica.Com
-------

 

[liliput1]

@Manu


It looks like my two recent test stories were sent back at exactly the same time with the identical message offering no reason but instead telling me to post my stories in the Forum. That is against your own rules. And as you can see, there is no checklist. This looks like an automatically generated antiquated message that you use when you can find no valid reason to reject a story,
My other three stories remain in pending purgatory. This is the message

-----

Dear Writer,

Thank you for your submission to Literotica. We appreciate the time and effort you've taken to write a story and submit it to our site . However, we've found that we cannot post your submission in its current form. The checklist below may help you in re-examining your manuscript.

This is better suited to our forum: http://forum.literotica.com/
Please feel free to re-submit the story after a Volunteer Editor has examined it, or after you've made revisions. You can find a list of Volunteer Editors here.

Please consult our Writer's Resources section and make sure you read our submission guidelines.
If you have any questions on these, please let us know.

Thanks for your time, and look forward to reading you again!

Laurel & Manu
Literotica.Com
-------


View attachment 2626260View attachment 2626261

I hope I'm speaking for a bunch of people when I say, thank you for your patience and we appreciate you trying to a/b test this problem.

 

[Sign54]

Why do "new" stories seem to go through faster(or at all) than ones resubmitted over and over again(who fall into pending purgatory)?? You had this issue?

 

[WaxPhilosophic]

Not to derail things, but I want to say I will be sorely disappointed if I'm unable to read "A Cat Named Curtis Mayfield."

 

[Annabelle1990]

@Manu @Laurel


I’m posting this publicly for transparency. Too many authors are being told the problem is on their end, and it isn’t. This is a reproducible Level 1 bug in the story submission pipeline (aka Pending Purgatory), and I want it documented in the open so authors stop blaming themselves.

The reproduction path is consistent. A story is submitted and rejected. The author edits and resubmits, and the resubmission may become permanently stuck in pending. If the story is rejected again and resubmitted again, it may become stuck again.

I currently have six stories in this state. Poetry and non‑story submissions behave normally, so the issue is specific to the story submission logic.

The likely cause is a database flag that isn’t resetting on rejection. A field such as resubmit_count or status_id is retaining the wrong value, causing the resubmit action to write to a row that never triggers moderation. This explains why some first‑time submissions move through the queue while some first-time submissions and resubmissions do not.

The possible fix is straightforward from a database perspective. Query the submissions table for rows where last_action is ‘resubmit’, status is ‘pending’, and days_pending is greater than two. This isolates only the stuck resubmissions without touching anything legitimately awaiting review. Each of these entries can then be checked for content validity and manually moved into the moderation queue or reset to a clean ‘submitted’ state. After that, the resubmit handler needs to be patched so the internal moderation flag resets properly on every resubmission.

If you want, I can text you my 6 stuck stories IDs.

Thanks.

I delete and resubmit with changes so I have not experienced this.

 

[SmilingLez]

I delete and resubmit with changes so I have not experienced this.

I'm glad that worked for you and other people, does not work for me and other people

This also proves the random either/or nature of this bug.

As always, this is my opinion and YMMV.

 

[SmilingLez]

I just submitted another story titled Truth. If it ends up in pending purgatory with my other three stories, I’ll add it to my Level 1 bug report.

 

[Capt_Roger]

I moved all 4 of my pending stories back to 'Drafts' and logged out/in, then submitted one new story for publication.

Honestly, I have doubts that we can clear any of this with these workarounds - Seems like once any story has been rejected (I had one which was too short) then that author is flagged for pending-purgatory indefinitely in the database, as noted by @SmilingLez at the top of this thread.

 

[Hidden_Submissive]

Count me in as someone getting stuck with this.

 

[cadeauxxx]

Mine was never rejected. It has just been stuck pending forever. I have done everything. Contacted admins, did the error reports, and wrote notes. I resubmitted again on May 20th. Been waiting a week. This is the last final time I will be doing this. I don't understand what the problem is, but wish it could be fixed.

 

[cadeauxxx]

Why do "new" stories seem to go through faster(or at all) than ones resubmitted over and over again(who fall into pending purgatory)?? You had this issue?

One of your stories looks like it went up. Hope your problem is resolved.

 

[SmilingLez]

Mine was never rejected. It has just been stuck pending forever. I have done everything. Contacted admins, did the error reports, and wrote notes. I resubmitted again on May 20th. Been waiting a week. This is the last final time I will be doing this. I don't understand what the problem is, but wish it could be fixed.

I am so sorry that you are also in pending purgatory. If you read the beginning of my thread you'll see I did some modified black box testing. This random and repeatable bug has to do with literotica's back end primarily the 27+ year old database held together by bubble gum and spit. My opinion - the database randomly does not release a flag during the internal process of evaluating a story. This results in a story being forever in pending purgatory. I don't even know if it is visible from the back end using a select statement. I also offered a possible fix. This problem has been ongoing since at least 2003, that's as far back as I was able to find other users complaining about being in pending status, using the search function.

As always my opinion and YMMV

 

[liliput1]

I am so sorry that you are also in pending purgatory. If you read the beginning of my thread you'll see I did some modified black box testing. This random and repeatable bug has to do with literotica's back end primarily the 27+ year old database held together by bubble gum and spit. My opinion - the database randomly does not release a flag during the internal process of evaluating a story. This results in a story being forever in pending purgatory. I don't even know if it is visible from the back end using a select statement. I also offered a possible fix. This problem has been ongoing since at least 2003, that's as far back as I was able to find other users complaining about being in pending status, using the search function.

As always my opinion and YMMV

How old is the hardware? I wonder when the last time was someone ran a memory integrity check...

 

[SmilingLez]

I am so sorry that you are also in pending purgatory. If you read the beginning of my thread you'll see I did some modified black box testing. This random and repeatable bug has to do with literotica's back end primarily the 27+ year old database held together by bubble gum and spit. My opinion - the database randomly does not release a flag during the internal process of evaluating a story. This results in a story being forever in pending purgatory. I don't even know if it is visible from the back end using a select statement. I also offered a possible fix. This problem has been ongoing since at least 2003, that's as far back as I was able to find other users complaining about being in pending status, using the search function.

As always my opinion and YMMV

What's also interesting is that my 2 test stories were rejected within a minute of each other, even though they were submitted days apart. (Most queues operate on a 1st come 1st serve basis.) This means the automatic process might not have been the reason for the rejection with the antiquated, no reason, automatically generated text message. Or it's just another back-end bug, Just like the duplicate notification bug in the control panel. Perhaps the bug is the entire back end and we are just seeing fragments break off

Again, my opinion and YMMV

 

[BeechLeaf]

Processes aren't linear queues, however they work. Two of your rejections together could just mean the bot or hamster or whatever it is got around to that sort of thing - the way T/I or Audio stories get published in a clump if you look at New. I monitor the comments I post, and I once saw ones I'd submitted two days ago, one day ago, and a couple of hours ago all go public at roughly the same time. They all seem to be jerky, hiccuppy processes, not FIFO.