Error messages and reference codes
What a customer-facing error means, and where to look up the real cause.
When a booking fails for a customer, Booked shows them a short, polite message and puts a code in brackets at the end of it. The message is written to be safe for a stranger to read. The code is written for you. It is a lookup key into your own Activity log, where Booked records the real reason the booking would not go through. A couple of codes never reach the customer at all and live only in that log — those are the ones worth knowing about.
What the customer actually sees
Customer-facing messages never name a member of staff, a system or a fault. They say what the customer needs to do next, and nothing more. The reference code in brackets is the only part that ties their screen to your records.
Thursday, 3 September · Bramhall branch
A travel vaccination booking that lost its slot at the final step.
- 1The friendly message — what happened, in one line, and what to do next. It never reveals who holds the slot or what your rules are.
- 2The reference code — always in brackets, always at the very end, always beginning GB-. This is the bit to ask the customer for, and the bit you search for in your log.
- 3Where they land — a lost slot moves the customer. Booked clears the time they picked and puts them back on the Time step with the message above it; the short form shows the message where they are. GB-SVC and GB-BLOCK leave them on the Your details step instead, with the message directly above the confirm button.
Error codes always end in a word — GB-SLOT, GB-BLOCK, GB-PAY-VERIFY. Do not confuse one with a booking reference, which is your prefix, a five-digit number and any suffix you have set, such as GB-00042. If you change Before the number under Settings › Booking rules › Booking references, your booking references change with it. Error codes never do — they are fixed in the software, so they still read GB- even if your appointments are branded BRAM-00042.
Look the code up in the Activity log
Every one of these failures writes a row to the Activity log at the moment it happens, carrying the code and the real technical reason behind it. That screen is the whole point of the code.
- Get the exact wording from the customerA screenshot is best. Failing that, ask them to read out the letters in the brackets — and roughly when they tried, so you can find the right row.
- Open Settings › Activity logIt is the last section down the left-hand rail. There is no Save button here: it is a read-only view, and that is intentional.
- Open the Errors tabThe tabs are Everything, Your team, Customers, Automatic and Errors, each with a count. Errors strips out every ordinary entry and leaves only failures, whoever was behind them.
- Paste the code into the search boxIt reads "Search by person, action or message…". Pasting GB-SLOT finds every row carrying that code.
- Read the What columnFor the booking codes below, the customer's message comes first, then the code, then the real reason. Rows are newest first, 50 to a page.
Who did what, when, and from where: your team, your customers, and Booked itself, with anything that went wrong on its own tab. Each booking and customer also carries its own history on its record.
Anything that went wrong, whoever was behind it.
| When | Who | What | Kind | From |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 26 Aug, 09:41 | A customer | Sorry, that time was just taken. Please pick another slot. — GB-SLOT — svc 7 loc 2 emp 4 2026-09-03 09:15 party 1 not free | Error | 82.14.6.203 |
| 26 Aug, 09:12 | A customer | Your booking could not be processed. Please contact us if you think this is a mistake. — GB-BLOCK — blocklist match: domain "mailinator.com" | Error | 203.0.113.4 |
| 25 Aug, 16:20 | A customer | That service is no longer available. — GB-SVC — service 19 missing/inactive | Error | 82.14.6.203 |
Settings › Activity log, on the Errors tab and searched for the code.
- 1Activity log — the last section of Settings. It needs the settings permission, so a team member who only manages bookings cannot reach it.
- 2Search — paste the code here. It reads “Search by person, action or message…” and looks inside the message text, so the code finds every row carrying it.
- 3Errors — the tab that matters. Its count is picked out in red on the other tabs whenever there is anything in it, and error rows are written in red, so they stand out even on Everything.
- 4The real reason — the customer’s message, then the code, then the technical detail. The numbers after svc, loc and emp are Booked’s own ids; the parts you can act on are the date, the time and the party size. emp 0 means the customer chose any available person.
- 5From — the IP address the attempt came from. It separates two people hitting the same problem minutes apart, and it is the value to copy into Blocked from booking.
Two things about these rows catch people out. The Who column never names a colleague on these rows, because nobody was signed in: it reads A customer for a failure on your public form, or Booked on rows written before the tabs existed — that is normal, not a sign the fault came from inside Booked. And the message is stored up to 255 characters, so a long technical detail can be cut off at the end. If a row looks truncated, you already have everything Booked kept.
What each code means
| Code | What the customer sees | What it really means |
|---|---|---|
| GB-SLOT | "Sorry, that time was just taken. Please pick another slot." | The slot stopped being free between the customer choosing it and pressing confirm. Someone else booked over it, the branch or the team member has a closed day covering that date, or the service's own availability window no longer allows it. The form clears the time and sends them back to pick another. |
| GB-SVC | "That service is no longer available." | The service was deleted, or switched away from active, while that customer had the form open. |
| GB-BLOCK | "Your booking could not be processed. Please contact us if you think this is a mistake." | The email address, email domain, IP address or IP range matched an entry under Settings › Booking rules › Blocked from booking. The log row names the type and the exact value that matched, so you can remove it if it caught the wrong person. A blocked attempt also writes a second, plain-English row you will see under Customers. |
| GB-PAY-VERIFY | Nothing — the confirmation screen appears as normal | Booked asked the payment system whether that payment had gone through and did not get a clear yes, so the appointment was left unpaid and unconfirmed. The money may still have been taken. |
| GB-PAY-MATCH | Nothing — the confirmation screen appears as normal | The payment being confirmed is not the one Booked recorded against this appointment, and the payment system’s own copy of it does not carry this appointment's reference either. Booked refuses to mark the wrong booking paid, so the appointment is left unpaid and unconfirmed. |
| GB-PAY-START | Nothing — the confirmation screen appears with no card step | A deposit was due and payments are switched on, but the card charge could not be started. The appointment is created anyway, unpaid. This code only ever appears in the log. |
None of the three stops the customer. After a card is charged the booking form tells your site the payment is done; if that call fails it tries three times and then shows the confirmation screen anyway. The customer walks away believing they have paid, while the appointment sits in Bookings as Pending and unpaid — that is the symptom to watch for. It also means the money may well have moved. If you are on Booked Payments, open Payments › Your money and search the Payments list for the customer's name or the booking reference before taking payment again: charging twice means a refund, and possibly a chargeback.
Failures that carry no code
- "Too many booking attempts. Please wait a few minutes and try again." — a limit of ten attempts from one IP address in ten minutes. Answering the screening questions and uploading documents count as attempts too, and so do bookings that went through. It is not logged and has no code. Staff testing the form repeatedly from the shop's own connection will trip it and lock out real customers on the same connection.
- "Your booking could not be processed." with no code in brackets — that is the hidden anti-spam field being filled in, which only automated form-fillers do. It looks almost identical to the start of the GB-BLOCK message, so check for the brackets: no code means no log row to find.
- "Not suitable to book" — that is your own screening rule doing its job, with the wording you wrote on the service's Questions tab. The customer can press Change my answers. Nothing has failed.
- GB-PREVIEW and DEMO-1234 — these are booking references, not errors. GB-PREVIEW comes from the live preview in the Booking form designer; DEMO-1234 comes from a form running in demo mode. Neither creates a real appointment.
- A booking that arrived Pending when you expected Confirmed — usually not an error. Auto-approve new bookings is off out of the box, so a booking that takes no payment waits for you. A booking paid online is set to Confirmed the moment Booked verifies the payment — so a deposit-taking booking still sitting Pending and unpaid is the one to check against the payment codes above.
Other messages a customer might quote
| What the customer sees | What it means |
|---|---|
| "Booked is not activated on this site." | Your licence is not active, so the form will not load. Check Settings › Your plan. |
| "Online booking is paused" | Booking is held while an update is applied. Customers are asked to call you. It clears on its own. |
| "Your card could not be charged. Please try again." | The card was declined. The bank’s own reason is shown instead when it gives one. No money moved and no appointment is confirmed. |
| "Secure card payments could not load. Please refresh and try again." | The card step did not load in their browser. A refresh usually fixes it; an ad blocker is a common cause. |
| "Based on your answers, this service cannot be booked online. Please contact us." | A screening question ruled them out and you have not written your own message for it. |
| "Please sign in to your account to use your credit." and the other GB-PKG codes | Prepaid credit: they need to sign in, the package has expired or run out, or the credit was used a moment ago. The package on their account shows which. |
| "One of your follow-up times was just taken. Please pick another." | A course booking lost one of its later visits while they were choosing. |
| "Your booking could not be saved. Please try again." | Your site could not write the booking. It has no code and no log row; if it repeats, contact support. |
What to send Booked support
If the log row does not explain it, send support the row rather than the symptom: the code, the When value, the full text of the What cell, the From address, and the customer's name and email. If an appointment was created before the failure, add its reference. Should support need to look at your site directly, you can let them in without sharing your own WordPress password.
Stuck? A one-time code lets Booked support sign in securely and fix things for you. Access is limited to the Booked plugin and expires on its own.
Read this code to Booked support. It can be used once and expires in 30 minutes.
Settings › Your plan, straight after pressing Grant support access.
- 1The code — 14 characters, minted fresh by the Grant support access button. Booked keeps only a scrambled copy, so if you lose it, generate another rather than hunting for it.
- 2What the code is worth — one use, 30 minutes. After that it stops working and you press Grant support access again. It is also used up the moment support signs in with it.
- 3Revoke access — removes an outstanding code so nobody can use it. It does not end a session that has already started.
The code signs support in as a temporary Booked Support user that can manage your bookings, customers, services, staff, locations and settings. It cannot touch the rest of your WordPress site, and it is not read-only. The 30 minutes is how long the code stays usable, not how long the session lasts — once it has been used it is an ordinary WordPress sign-in. Every grant and every support sign-in is written to the Activity log, and anything they change is recorded there under Booked Support.