When a Quick schedule URL will not open
Why the page says the schedule cannot be found, and what is still possible once the organiser URL has been lost.
- Help category
- Quick scheduling
A Quick schedule URL fails to open for one of three reasons: part of the URL was cut off, the 90-day retention period has passed, or the schedule was deleted. The page shows the same wording in every case, so the screen will not tell you which one it was. An organiser URL that has been lost cannot be reissued, and the schedule has to be created again.
"This schedule wasn't found" covers four separate causes
The participant page shows two lines: "This schedule wasn't found" and "The URL may be incorrect, or it may have been deleted or the retention period (90 days) has expired." A URL that is wrong, a retention period that has run out, a schedule that was deleted, and a token that does not match are all normalised into the same response on the server.
The retention check runs every time the page is read, so a schedule stops opening the moment the 90 days are up, without waiting for the deletion job to run. How the 90 days are counted is described in Using Quick schedule without an account.
| What the screen says | What it can mean | What you can do |
|---|---|---|
| "This schedule wasn't found" | The URL was cut off part way through, the retention period has passed, or the schedule was deleted | Ask whoever shared it to send the URL again |
| "Can't open the organizer page" | Everything from "#ot=" onwards is missing, the retention period has passed, or the schedule was deleted | Paste the URL you saved again, including the end of it |
| The page opens, but your own response cannot be edited | You are on a different device or browser from the one that answered | Send it again as a new response |
Losing the organiser URL means that schedule can never be managed again
With only the participant URL left, the participant page still shows every name, every yes, maybe and no, and every comment. What it cannot do is confirm a time or add candidates. If a time still has to be confirmed, create the schedule again.
The organiser URL ends with "#ot=" followed by a token. If a copy stops short of that, the organiser page will not open. When the page says "Open the organizer URL (the one with #ot=).", check whether everything from "#ot=" onwards is still there.
A response can only be edited from the device that sent it
Sending a response stores what is needed to edit it later in that browser, in localStorage on that device. The message shown right after answering says so: "Your response has been saved. You can edit it any time from this device."
Another device, another browser, a private window, or a browser whose data has been cleared: none of them hold that information, so the edit form cannot be reached. Sending again leaves two responses under the same name in the table.
There is no way to remove just one of the two, so use the comment field to say which one counts.
Once a time is confirmed, new responses and edits to existing responses both stop. To collect more, the organiser presses "Unconfirm". What the person who receives the URL sees is covered in When a Tokiawase link arrives.
A deleted Quick schedule cannot be brought back
The wording on the organiser page is "If you delete it, you will no longer be able to open the participant page. Data will be permanently deleted 30 days after deletion."
Some error lines come straight from the API, untouched
Quick schedule has a path that shows the message the API returned exactly as it arrived, with no wording of its own. That is why a short technical line appears under "Error" instead of the phrasing used everywhere else on the page. Four of them turn up in ordinary use.
- "Invalid request body" — the input was not in a shape the server accepts. Adding a 51st candidate time is one way to reach it.
- "Candidate startsAt must be in the future" — one of the candidate times is in the past.
- "ThrottlerException: Too Many Requests" — too many operations in a short space of time.
- "Response limit reached for this schedule" — the responses have reached the limit of 200 for a single schedule.
Creating is capped at 5 times per 60 seconds, and responses and organiser actions at 20 times per 60 seconds. In a shared office, several people creating schedules one after another can reach those numbers with nothing untoward going on. The count is not necessarily kept per client either: with a proxy in between, the requests are counted together.
Nothing on screen says how many seconds are left, so the only thing to do is leave it a while and try again.
What you can do to avoid losing it is all on the screen shown right after creation
The organiser URL appears on one screen only, the "Your URLs are ready" screen shown right after creation. Do these three things before closing it.
- Bookmark the "Organizer URL (for you only)", or paste it into a note. Copy it all the way to the end, including everything from "#ot=" onwards.
- Keep it somewhere other than the "Participant URL (for sharing)". Share the wrong one and anybody who receives it can confirm or delete the schedule.
- For anything long-running, run "Transfer this schedule to your account" from the organiser page. The 90-day automatic deletion then no longer applies (Creating an account).
Even after it has been handed over, the way to reach the schedule is still the organiser URL, and no list of handed-over schedules appears in the app.
There is no screen showing the days remaining, no notice that the deadline is close, and no action to extend it. The only mention is one line on the creation form: "A Quick schedule is deleted 90 days after it was last used." The count restarts with every response and every edit, so a schedule people are still using keeps extending on its own.