If you are having a lengthy delay in publishing, please add the name of your story and when submitted here.

[ChloeTzang]

Without any comunication from Literotica, it's impossible to say what's going on, and for whatever reason, no-one has had a response from Laurel or Manu on this issue. I suspect Laurel has a huge backlog of PM's so using PM to contact either of them on this is going to be pointless.

Apart from deleting and submitting again (as set out in my precious post). I'd recommend that everyone that experiences this problem REPORT IT AS A BUG

In the "What do you see? (describe the problem):*" use the same first line: "PENDING STORY BUG" - a deluge of these may get more attention

 

[Louys90]

This situation is really frustrating.
I've ended up with 10 submissions piled up in the queue over the past month and a half. TEN SUBMISSIONS!
The oldest has been pending since 9/12!
With some of them, I even tried the little trick of deleting and resubmitting, but nope—still stuck in the queue after two weeks.
I’m out of ideas at this point.

 

[EmilyMiller]

This situation is really frustrating.
I've ended up with 10 submissions piled up in the queue over the past month and a half. TEN SUBMISSIONS!
The oldest has been pending since 9/12!
With some of them, I even tried the little trick of deleting and resubmitting, but nope—still stuck in the queue after two weeks.
I’m out of ideas at this point.

Very sorry to hear

 

[Aoife_from_Ulster]

I'd recommend two actions if your story has been sitting in Pending for more than 10-15 days *Laurel says 15 days but personally, I did this after 7 days. Most stories are processed and go thru in 1-3 days, so doing this after 7-10 days sounds appropriatel

(1) DELETE your pending story completely. I repeat, DELETE (not just resubmit)
(2) Submit it as a NEW Story (completely new, from scratch)
(3) Add a Note to Admin saying something like "Story was in Pending from (date) to (date). Was not processed. Deleted completely and resubmitted as a new story on (date)"

This seems to work for quite a few people

Just a suggestion: If you submitted as a Word attachment previously, instead, try copying and pasting the text into the Story submission form on Literotica

If you do this and your story ends up in Pending Hell again, also Report it as a bug on Literotica

1. Use the online bug report form.

Include the exact URL if the story, the nane of the story, your userid, the date you submitted the story, as well as details about your browser (Chrome, Firefox, etc.) and any other relevant information that you think might help them track down the issue.

Thank you Chloe, I will give it another few days hitting the 10-15 day mark and take your recommendation. Though I have never deleted a story and wasn't aware there was that option. Thanks

 

[Actingup]

I'd recommend two actions if your story has been sitting in Pending for more than 10-15 days *Laurel says 15 days but personally, I did this after 7 days. Most stories are processed and go thru in 1-3 days, so doing this after 7-10 days sounds appropriatel

(1) DELETE your pending story completely. I repeat, DELETE (not just resubmit)
(2) Submit it as a NEW Story (completely new, from scratch)
(3) Add a Note to Admin saying something like "Story was in Pending from (date) to (date). Was not processed. Deleted completely and resubmitted as a new story on (date)"

This seems to work for quite a few people

Just a suggestion: If you submitted as a Word attachment previously, instead, try copying and pasting the text into the Story submission form on Literotica

If you do this and your story ends up in Pending Hell again, also Report it as a bug on Literotica

1. Use the online bug report form.

Include the exact URL if the story, the nane of the story, your userid, the date you submitted the story, as well as details about your browser (Chrome, Firefox, etc.) and any other relevant information that you think might help them track down the issue.

I've done steps 1-3 above previously, so I've now moved to step 4 (online report form). Fingers crossed.

 

[iwatchus]

I've done steps 1-3 above previously, so I've now moved to step 4 (online report form). Fingers crossed.

Let us know if that gets any action. I'm in the same boat as you

 

[Aoife_from_Ulster]

Let us know if that gets any action. I'm in the same boat as you

I just Reported A Bug let’s see if that fixes things

 

[ChloeTzang]

Let us know if that gets any action. I'm in the same boat as you

OPen a Bug Ticket as well

The more people that open tickets reporting this, the more likely it is to get attention

 

[ChloeTzang]

This situation is really frustrating.
I've ended up with 10 submissions piled up in the queue over the past month and a half. TEN SUBMISSIONS!
The oldest has been pending since 9/12!
With some of them, I even tried the little trick of deleting and resubmitting, but nope—still stuck in the queue after two weeks.
I’m out of ideas at this point.

Open a Bug Report

List all the pending stories and your userid, if you have the date you submitted them, include that as well for each story

 

[iwatchus]

I have to say, if I was in Manu/Laurel's shoes, I would find the bug reports annoying. I strongly suspect that the problem is not technical in the sense many people are assuming.

If you look back at the complaints from a few months ago about AI rejections (and some content rejections), that standard version was that story sat in pending for a while and then got rejected. I am speculating here, but I have't seen another plausible explanation that fits the data we had.

This feels like something triggered a manual review, whether it was potential AI, potential content or something that she wanted to give a more careful read to (I suspect that is the issue with my How To and was for Frances Scott's How to a few months ago). I don't know if it was a physical stack of papers on her desk or some form of an electronic grab bag. It certainly was not an orderly queue. Which makes sense that a note to Laurel could get your story a new read.

If something happened to Laurel's productivity keeping up with her stack of special needs stories, we would have seen exactly what we did. If this is the case, it is not a technical failure, not the kind of thing that bug reports are helpful for.

One option is to hope Laurel returns to her prior productivity and find a way to sort through the backlog that developed during the big slowdown. This may be what is happening. But if she was barely keeping up before, it will take a very long time to handle all the backlog. The other is a complete reworking of the process, but that will be painful for both of them and will take time. so be painful for us.

I am not saying no one should be submitting bug reports, but I am certainly not encouraging it either. Nor will I be submitting one unless I hear Manu state he wants them (yeah, right).

 

[SugarStorm]

The whole situation is so odd though. And we don't know what the actual backlog is. We suspect there is one, we know that they said they said there was a heavy increase for a few days back in April, but they have since gone radio silent on the subject; the forum post in August makes it sound like everything's under control with the 2-3 days queue time.

Yet we know that some people get stories published within 24 hours with no apparent logic to support it.

If we look through the stories being added to the New lists we see 150-250 a day spread over all categories and types.

Either they are wilfully ignoring the issue, which seems like an odd approach to take, or they don't see the issue. Maybe stories don't get properly submitted for various reasons (on a technical level), and don't even reach them for review.

 

[iwatchus]

They have always approved some things out of order. Most submissions pass through the auto-checks cleanly. I strongly believe thatLaurel had always glanced at stories to set some aside for additional review. It is the stories that are flagged for additional review that are pending. That it is not random is pretty well indicated by the number of stories that go back to pending hell when resubmitted. (Although curiously, not all do.)

They may well have loosened the standards of what needs reviewed to start to free up time to work on the backlog, but I would not be surprised if that is mostly most recent first, working backwards through the backlog. Or it may be more or less random which ones get reviewed when. Which seemed to be the case for the old system.

 

[EmilyMiller]

It’s all guesswork I’m afraid.

 

[iwatchus]

But there is sufficient data to rule out most of the guesses people have made because they don't actually fit the observed behaviors. And many others simply are not the way the software systems are built and evolve.

I may well be completely wrong. but I have not heard any other scenarios that I find plausible, given what we do know.

 

[EmilyMiller]

But there is sufficient data to rule out most of the guesses people have made because they don't actually fit the observed behaviors. And many others simply are not the way the software systems are built and evolve.

I may well be completely wrong. but I have not heard any other scenarios that I find plausible, given what we do know.

I think there is a human element in things, for sure. Which is worrying.

 

[Nightaelf]

It would be so much easier if they just posted a message saying there’s a backlog, please don’t keep changing things, and be patient. Everyone keeps resubmitting reports and edits, especially if a story still needs review, and that only makes it worse.

If they were honest about what’s going on, it would be far less frustrating. I’ve been waiting two months for a story to be published, and I’d rather know whether it’s under review or just stuck in a pile.

I mostly hope nothing’s wrong with Laurel or Manu, since their names keep popping up. It’s a free site, so people would understand if they were simply clearer about what’s happening. It’s hard to believe they haven’t noticed there’s an issue.

 

[Actingup]

They have always approved some things out of order. Most submissions pass through the auto-checks cleanly. I strongly believe thatLaurel had always glanced at stories to set some aside for additional review. It is the stories that are flagged for additional review that are pending. That it is not random is pretty well indicated by the number of stories that go back to pending hell when resubmitted. (Although curiously, not all do.)

They may well have loosened the standards of what needs reviewed to start to free up time to work on the backlog, but I would not be surprised if that is mostly most recent first, working backwards through the backlog. Or it may be more or less random which ones get reviewed when. Which seemed to be the case for the old system.

I think that we can take it as read that it’s not random. It just looks random, because we haven’t worked out the pattern yet. I also agree that it’s more likely to be a human-related system that’s broken. They clearly have a priority-based workaround since some of the Halloween stories are being published at breakneck speed.

The only ‘set aside’ trigger in my pending story would be the use of ‘serial killer’ in the blurb. Otherwise it’s a simple enough tale written in my usual style. My Halloween tale is actually a lot creepier, but that wouldn't be detected by any automated process or cursory read.

 

[DEFCOM5]

I keep going back to the 8/1/25 post from Laurel.
She indicated that the reason you do not get published is because the story has been sent back or is in draft.
I wonder if they do not see the pending stories as if they say pending to us but the system treat them as draft.
That would explain things because for them, they are no pending stories for weeks or months. They are tagged as draft for them so they will ignore them.
This would be definitively a bug.
I am not sure how to bring this to their attention. PM seem to go into a void

 

[ChloeTzang]

The biggest problem here is the total lack of communication on this issue, and enough PM's have been sent that there must be an awareness that this IS an issue and it's causing an enormous amount of frustration.

A simple post saying what the issue is, and that Literotica is aware of the issue and what;s being done and what we should do if our story goes into the Pending black hole for more than 15 days would be enough - but to see a story or stories pending for weeks on end and no response is a bit much.

Communication to users is critical on issues like this and sad to say, the balls been well and truly dropped.

 

[ChloeTzang]

I keep going back to the 8/1/25 post from Laurel.
She indicated that the reason you do not get published is because the story has been sent back or is in draft.
I wonder if they do not see the pending stories as if they say pending to us but the system treat them as draft.
That would explain things because for them, they are no pending stories for weeks or months. They are tagged as draft for them so they will ignore them.
This would be definitively a bug.
I am not sure how to bring this to their attention. PM seem to go into a void

Do a Bug Report. Weknow PM's aren't working - a Bug Report seems the only option left

 

[iwatchus]

And I just went in and checked and the option to delete a story from Pending or Draft has been removed.

It has not been for me. I created one draft and deleted that successfully. My one in pending hell has the option available to me. I suggest double checking it for you.

 

[DEFCOM5]

Do a Bug Report. Weknow PM's aren't working - a Bug Report seems the only option left

Where can I find the link to do a bug report when I give up and delete and resubmit my story in a few days

 

[EmilyMiller]

And I just went in and checked and the option to delete a story from Pending or Draft has been removed.

I see the option to delete if I click on the gear wheel in my list of draft stories

 

[ChloeTzang]

It has not been for me. I created one draft and deleted that successfully. My one in pending hell has the option available to me. I suggest double checking it for you.

I went back in and checked and the DELETE option is there now

No idea what happened but I went in there - I knew thats where it was and there was no Delete function and now its back!!!!!!!

Thx a million - I am a happier puppy now

 

[ChloeTzang]

Where can I find the link to do a bug report when I give up and delete and resubmit my story in a few days

Here ya go

:iterotica Bug Report Form