Events on the Activity tab#
Every channel's Activity tab lists the channel's render history with an Events section below it that logs issues scoped to that channel. Each event shows a message, a timestamp, and a severity — Info, Warning, or Error — and you can filter the list by severity. Two things currently show up here:
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A warning when a product is missing required content for one of the channel's fields (see Require content for this placeholder) — this clears automatically once a clean deploy no longer finds the gap.
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An error if the channel itself can't be rendered because it — or its organization — is over a plan limit.
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A warning when the channel's output settings don't fit a destination you've named under Used for — see Delivery warnings below.
Check here first if a channel's output looks wrong or incomplete — and expand a render in the list above the events to see that run's plain-language log, statistics, and per-field fill rates. On a finished render, the Excluded by rules, Out of stock, and New media statistics link straight to the Preview tab filtered to those products, so you can see the actual entries behind a count.
Alerts raised by your monitors also land here when they concern this channel — a monitor watching feed updates ("product count drops sharply", "the update failed") raises its alert on the affected channel's Activity tab like any other event, and the alert clears on its own once a later check passes. A monitor can also hold the channel's publish while triggered, in which case the held update shows the Publish held status in the render history and the previous feed stays live. See Monitoring your catalogs and channels.
Delivery warnings#
These appear when a destination you've named under Used for can't use the file the channel produces. Each one names the destination, says what it doesn't do, and points at the setting that fixes it — all on the Settings tab. None of them stops a render or a delivery; the feed keeps being built and published exactly as before.
- "[Destination] doesn't read [format] feeds" — the channel's file format isn't one that destination reads. The message lists the formats it does read; change File format in the Output card to one of them. The two that surprise people: Google reads XML or TSV but not CSV (its text format is tab-delimited, so a comma-separated file arrives as a single column), and ChatGPT reads TSV, CSV, or JSON Lines but never XML. PriceRunner and Criteo are the only destinations that read JSON from a hosted feed, and none reads JSON Lines.
- "[Destination] has no way to receive this feed" — that destination only takes files pushed to it, and the channel has no SFTP details set, so nothing is being delivered at all. Fill in the SFTP delivery section with the host, user, and password that destination gave you, then use Test connection.
- "[Destination] doesn't accept compressed feeds" — the feed is gzipped and that destination wants it uncompressed. Turn off Compress feed file (.gz) in the Output card.
Each of these clears by itself on the next render once the setting is corrected — there's nothing to dismiss. You'll also see the same problems while you're editing, right next to the setting that causes them, so they rarely need to reach this list at all.
Two things these warnings are not. They are not a claim your feed was rejected — what a destination does with a file is between you and them. And silence is not approval: where a destination's rules haven't been confirmed, Renable says nothing rather than guessing.
There is also no warning for having SFTP delivery switched on for a destination that fetches your feed URL — pushing the file to your own server so a destination can collect it from there is a normal setup, not a mistake.
A failed SFTP push is a different warning with a different cause — that one means the delivery was attempted and the server refused it (wrong password, missing directory, server down). It clears on the next successful delivery.
"Preparing your feed…"#
You'll see this status in the bar under the channel's name on a brand-new channel before its first successful deployment finishes. It isn't an error — rendering images, video, and content for every product in the channel's product set(s) takes some time on the first pass. Once that first deployment completes, the status clears and the copy-feed-URL button appears (the full URL is on the Settings tab).
An established channel can show it briefly too, right after a Renable platform update: the status is read from the channel's render history, and a channel that hasn't been rebuilt since the update has none yet. Your live feed is untouched and keeps serving at its usual URL throughout — the status clears the next time the channel updates, which happens on its own whenever products, project settings or a linked design change. You can also press Regenerate to clear it immediately.
While an established channel is showing this, the Settings tab hides its feed URL and says the URL isn't ready yet. That's the same status talking, and it's the one place where it's worth knowing it isn't literally true: the feed is live and the address hasn't changed. If you need the URL during that window, press Regenerate and it comes back as soon as the rebuild finishes — or copy it from wherever you already gave it to the ad network, since it's the same address.
If the status persists unusually long on a channel that IS rebuilding, check the Activity tab for errors blocking the render.
"Feed emptied" in the Activity tab#
A run labelled Feed emptied means Renable replaced your live feed with an empty one on purpose. It isn't a failed build — the zero product count is the result, not a symptom. It happens when:
- the channel was archived,
- your plan's channel limit was exceeded and this channel fell outside it, or
- the organization was deactivated (for example, a lapsed subscription).
The ad network will stop seeing products for this channel while it stays empty. Resolve the cause — unarchive the channel, move to a plan that covers the number of channels you're running, or restore the subscription — and the channel refills on its next normal deploy. You can press Regenerate to rebuild it straight away once the cause is cleared.
"Show only marked products"#
The Preview tab has a "Show only marked products" switch. It filters the preview down to whichever products a channel automation's mark-product action has marked — for example, an automation that marks every product currently below a stock threshold, so you can review just those without scrolling the full catalog.
If this filter shows nothing, it means either:
- No automation on this channel currently uses the mark-product action, or
- No product currently matches the condition of any automation that does.
Both are normal — this filter is only useful once you've deliberately set up an automation to mark products you want to keep an eye on.