Fix the “Select a Valid Main Author” Error When Publishing a Post

If WordPress won’t publish or update your post and Molongui Authorship displays an error about the Main Author, the post may not have a valid primary author assigned.

This article explains how to identify and fix the problem.

The Error Message

You may see:

“Select a valid main author before publishing or updating a published post.”

In the Block Editor, WordPress may display it with one of these prefixes:

• Publishing failed.
• Updating failed.

This happens when Molongui cannot validate the Main Author required for the requested publication or update.

Quick Fix

1. Open the affected post in WordPress.
2. Locate the Authors panel.
3. Look for the MAIN label next to the assigned authors.
4. If no author is marked Main, find the author who should receive primary credit.
5. Click the empty star icon next to that author.
6. Confirm that the MAIN label appears.
7. Save, update, or publish the post.

With Molongui Authorship 5.3.1 or later, you can save the new Main Author and publish directly from the editor without having to perform two separate saves.

Why Does This Happen?

A post may have one or more authors assigned without having a designated Main Author.

For example:

• A Guest Author was added without selecting Main.
• The previous Main Author was removed, leaving multiple co-authors.
• The post was created or edited before its authorship was fully resolved.
• The post contains older or incomplete authorship information.

Having an author listed in the Authors panel does not necessarily mean that the author is designated as Main.

Look for the MAIN label to confirm.

Why Does the Post Stay in Draft?

Molongui allows you to save drafts without a Main Author, but it requires valid primary authorship before publishing.

When you try to publish a Draft without a valid Main Author, the publication is blocked.

The post remains a Draft until the authorship issue is resolved.

Similarly, if you remove the Main Author from an already published post, the full post editor prevents the invalid update rather than silently reverting the published post to Draft.

Why Does WordPress Show “Schedule” Instead of “Publish”?

This is usually related to the post’s publication date, not its Main Author.

When a post is set to a future publication date, WordPress offers to schedule it rather than publish it immediately.

If you want to publish the post now:

1. Open the post settings.
2. Find the publication date.
3. Change it to Immediately or Now, depending on your WordPress version.
4. Confirm that the post has a valid Main Author.
5. Publish the post.

Scheduled posts also require a valid Main Author.

How to Find Other Affected Posts

Go to Posts > All Posts and open the No Main Author view.

This helps identify posts explicitly marked as having unresolved Main Author information.

Review each affected post and assign the correct Main Author.

Still Having Trouble?

Make sure you’re running the latest version of Molongui Authorship.

Versions 5.3.1 and 5.3.2 include improvements to publication validation and automatic Main Author assignment.

If the issue persists after selecting a valid Main Author, contact Molongui Support and include:

• Your Molongui Authorship version.
• Your WordPress version.
• Whether you’re using the Block Editor, Classic Editor, Quick Edit, or Bulk Edit.
• The exact error message.
• Whether the affected post is a Draft, Published, or Scheduled.
• Whether the author is a WordPress user or Guest Author.

This information will help us investigate the problem more efficiently.