Overview
You may receive a Contently notification email where the line “The planned publish date for this story is” appears but the date is missing/blank or the formatting looks broken. If the planned publish date is correct inside the story in Contently, the story record is typically not impacted and the issue is most often caused by email modification or rendering changes after the message leaves Contently (for example, security banner injection, HTML sanitization, or link rewriting).
Solution
Symptoms
- Exact symptom text: “The planned publish date for this story is” (followed by missing/blank content or broken layout).
- The recipient’s copy of the email may show signs of mail-system modification, such as:
- External sender warning banners (for example: “This Message Is From an External Sender”).
- Injected banner delimiters/markers (for example: “ZjQcmQRYFpfptBannerStart … ZjQcmQRYFpfptBannerEnd”).
- Security link rewriting (URLs rewritten through a mail-security gateway to external tracking/redirect URLs).
Why this happens
If the planned publish date displays correctly inside the Contently story, the underlying story data is usually correct. In these cases, the most likely cause is that the notification email was generated correctly, but a downstream mail system changed how the HTML email renders for that recipient, such as:
- HTML sanitization/stripping
- Banner injection
- Link rewriting
- Content filtering or truncation
- Mail relay/network rewriting
This can affect only one recipient and may occur as a one-off event.
Troubleshooting workflow
-
Validate the source of truth in Contently
- Open the story in Contently and confirm the planned publish date is present and correct.
-
Determine scope
- Confirm whether it affected only one recipient.
- Confirm whether it happened only once (did not recur on subsequent notifications).
-
Compare with other recipients (if applicable)
- If other recipients received a normal-looking copy, that strongly supports “modified in transit/display” rather than a Contently template or story-data issue.
Next steps
If it was a one-time event
- Treat this as a transient, isolated email-formatting anomaly. No change is required in Contently.
If it recurs
To enable reliable analysis, collect and provide the original email as received (not forwarded):
- Ask the recipient to download/export the message as:
- .eml (common for many mail clients), or
- .msg (common for Microsoft Outlook)
- Provide the exported .eml or .msg file for analysis.
Important: Forwarded emails often remove or alter critical details. The .eml/.msg preserves:
- Full message headers (routing, rewriting, and security-tool stamping)
- The original HTML body as delivered
With the preserved headers and HTML, it becomes possible to determine whether the alteration occurred during email generation or after delivery (mail gateway/security tooling/client rendering). No Contently defect or version-specific fix is typically identified when the in-product story data is correct and the issue is isolated to a recipient’s received copy.
How to verify it’s resolved
- Trigger or wait for the next Contently notification email to the same recipient.
- Confirm the publish-date line renders correctly and the date appears as expected.
- If the in-product story publish date remains correct but the email continues to render incorrectly, proceed with .eml/.msg collection and involve your internal email/security team to review banner injection, sanitization, rewriting, or filtering behavior.
Frequently Asked Questions
- 1. How do I know this is the same issue?
- The email contains the line “The planned publish date for this story is” but the date appears missing/blank or the formatting is broken, often alongside signs of email-security modification (external sender banner text, banner injection markers, or rewritten links).
- 2. The publish date looks wrong in the email—how do I confirm whether Contently data is correct?
- Open the story in Contently and verify the planned publish date there. If it’s correct in the story, the issue is likely email rendering/modification after sending rather than incorrect story data.
- 3. Why can’t this be investigated using a forwarded email?
- Forwarding can remove or change the original headers and HTML. The original .eml or .msg preserves the full headers and the exact HTML as delivered, which is required to determine where content was altered.
- 4. What should I send if the issue happens again?
- Send the original email file exported as .eml or .msg (not a screenshot and not a forwarded copy). If possible, include the date/time received and whether other recipients saw the same issue.
- 5. If it’s caused by our email security tools, what can we do?
- Review banner injection, HTML sanitization, and link rewriting policies for messages from Contently notification senders. If needed, allowlist the sender or adjust rewriting/sanitization rules (these settings are typically managed by your internal email/security team).