# Page approved by the right people never published, and shows Failed with "Parent page is not publish

**What you are seeing**

A page approved by the right people never published, and shows Failed with "Parent page is not published and could not be published".

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## Why it happens

With "Preserve hierarchy", only a manual publish will automatically publish the ancestors it needs. An approval-triggered publish never does. It can only reuse a parent that is already published.

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## What to do

Publish the parent pages first (a manual publish of the top page will pull the tree through), or publish the containing folder, or turn on "Update existing pages by title" so an existing same-titled parent in the target space can be adopted. Alternatively switch Page structure to "Flatten to parent".

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## Settings involved

| **Setting**                    | **Where**                                   | **What it does** |
| ------------------------------ | ------------------------------------------- | ---------------- |
| Allow manual publishing        | Space settings → Publishing → Setup tab     | \-               |
| Require comment on publish     | Space settings → Publishing → Setup tab     | \-               |
| Update existing pages by title | Space settings → Publishing → Structure tab | \-               |

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## Related

[Nothing publishes when approvals are approved, and there is no "Publish approved pages" buttonYou are running the standalone Publishing app, which does not include the Approval capabil](https://help.gocapable.com/publishing/nothing-publishes-when-approvals-are-approved-and-there-is-no-publish-approved-pages-button.html)

[Page I published shows Failed and the reason is "Publishing disabled by label"The page carries the capable\_never\_publish label, which permanently excludes it.](https://help.gocapable.com/publishing/page-i-published-shows-failed-and-the-reason-is-publishing-disabled-by-label.html)

[Export and published sitesThe rest of this family.](https://help.gocapable.com/publishing/export-and-published-sites.html)

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_Found it? Good._