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Error on Edit or Publish of Knowledge Article

Date de publication: Oct 25, 2025
Description

You may encounter errors when you attempt to edit a published Knowledge article, even if you have the correct Knowledge User permissions.

"Data Not Available" 

"You do not have sufficient privileges"

"You can't perform this action"

"InvalidAction"

"Insufficient Privileges"


Possible steps to replicate the errors:

In Salesforce Classic
 
  • Knowledge tab | Select a published article then click Edit button (the error returned is "Data Not Available.")
  • Article Management tab | Published or Archived Articles then click Edit link (the error returned is "Insufficient Privileges - You do not have sufficient privileges to perform this action. Please contact your administrator.")
  • Open a draft article from Knowledge Management and attempt to click the "Publish..." button and receive an "Insufficient Privileges" error.

In Lightning Experience
 
  • When Users are in the Knowledge tab then tried to edit an article as draft or publish a draft article (the error returned is "You can't perform this action. Be sure the action is valid for the current state of the article, and that you have permission to perform it.")
  • Attempt to Restore an Archived article, the user may be presented with an InvalidAction error message.
 
Résolution


Picklist values in the article are not configured correctly:


1. For a specific Knowledge article with error, identify all picklist fields and values used in the article with error.

2. Attempt to create a new test article using the picklist values that are present in the Knowledge Article causing the error. If you don't see the picklist values as available when creating a new article, it would indicate the picklist value is not active or available for the assigned record type, or the picklist values are not a valid dependency.


The picklist value is not active
 

If the picklist value is inactive, reactivate or replace that value to resolve this error. See also: 



The picklist value is not listed in the Selected Values of the articles assigned record type

 



The selected picklist value is not a valid dependency


Review your picklist dependencies to see if the currently selected values are mapped properly.

 


The article is locked by an Article Approval process


If you're receiving the error in Lightning Experience, view the article in Salesforce Classic to see if it is locked by an approval process.

 


The User does not have the correct 'Publish Articles' permission for Lightning Knowledge

 



There are Orphaned / Duplicate Topic Assignments associated to the Article

 

  • Remove all of the Topics from the Article and then add them back to the Article.

 

The article contains broken content or image references

 



Custom lookup field to knowledge that's populated with an article translation prevents publishing

 

  • If there is a custom lookup field to the knowledge article version object, attempting to publish a translation referenced or populated in the lookup may result in the error:

You can't perform this action. Be sure the action is valid for the current stat of the article, and that you have permission to perform it.
 
  • This is known to occur when an article with a master version and a translation are both published and when the custom lookup field to Knowledge is populated with the translated version of the knowledge article. Edit of the master article and selecting to re-publish as the same version will cause the translation draft to result in the error above when attempting to publish.

 

  • Workaround to resolve the error condition on attempting to publish the translation:

1. Publish the master article as a new version or

2. Clear the lookup field that contains the reference to the translated knowledge article version.
 



The article has more than 200 topics assigned to all published versions including translations


As per the General Chatter Allocations documentation, there is a hard coded system limit of 200 topics assigned to knowledge articles. This limit is aggregated across all article translations. So for example, if you Add Topics to Articles in an Experience Site the total number of topics may look to be under the limit, but each Topic is actually applied to all translations. If you have 21 topics assigned and 10 translated versions of the article you will exceed the limit of 200 topics assigned to the article (21 topics x 10 translations = 210 topics assigned).
 

  • When an article has translated versions, the topics assigned to the master language version are not counted against the limit. Only topics in the translated language versions are counted toward the 200 limit. If an article has no translations, the topics assigned to the master language version are counted toward the 200 limit.


To resolve, remove the required number of topics assigned to the article in question to maintain under the limit of 200. Admins can also identify the Topics currently assigned to an article using the API:
 

  • Perform a query on the KnowledgeArticleVersion object to return a list of all currently published versions. Substitute the Knowledge Article's record Id in for <KnowledgeArticleIdHere> in the below query:

 

SELECT Id, KnowledgeArticleId, Language FROM KnowledgeArticleVersion WHERE KnowledgeArticleId = '<KnowledgeArticleIdHere>' AND PublishStatus = 'Online'
 
  • The query should return all of the currently published KnowledgeArticleVersion record Ids. Next perform a Query on the TopicAssignment object. Substitute the returned "KnowledgeArticleVersion record Ids in for <KnowledgeVersionIdHere> in the below query. Include all of the KnowledgeArticleVersion Ids returned from the previous query:

SELECT EntityId, EntityKeyPrefix, EntityType, Id, NetworkId, TopicId FROM TopicAssignment WHERE EntityId IN ('<KnowledgeVersionIdHere>', '<KnowledgeVersionIdHere>', '<KnowledgeVersionIdHere>')
 
Numéro d’article de la base de connaissances

000382317

 
Chargement
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