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.

• 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 is the one failure that moves the customer. Booked clears the time they picked and puts them back on the Time step with the message above it. 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 the Prefix under Settings Bookings › 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.

1. 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.
2. Open Booked › Settings › Activity logIt is the last tab down the left-hand rail. There is no Save settings bar on this tab — it is a read-only view, and that is intentional.
3. Click the Errors chipThe chips are Everything, Changes and Errors. Errors strips out every ordinary edit and leaves only failures.
4. Paste the code into the search boxIt reads "Search by person, action…", which undersells it — the search also looks inside the message text, so pasting GB-SLOT finds every row carrying that code.
5. 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.

• 1The Activity tab — bottom of the Settings rail. This screen needs full settings permission, so a team member who only manages bookings will not be able to reach it.
• 2Search — paste the code here. It also matches a person's name or an action, and waits a moment after you stop typing.
• 3Errors — the filter that matters. Error rows are highlighted and tagged, 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 internal ids; the parts you can act on are the date, the time and the party size. Check your Bookings screen for that date and time to see what is sitting there now.
• 5The customer's IP address — where the attempt came from. It separates two people hitting the same problem minutes apart, and it is the value to copy if you decide to add an entry under Blocked from booking.

Two things about these rows catch people out. The Who column reads System for anything a customer triggered, because nobody was signed in — 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

Failures that carry no code

• "Too many booking attempts. Please wait a few minutes and try again." — a rate limit of ten attempts from one IP address in ten minutes, and every attempt pushes the ten minutes back. 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 under the service's Eligibility & intake settings. 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.

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 IP 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.

• 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.