Connecting Instagram prepares a professional account for governed publishing. It does not publish a post, approve a Creative Project, or prove that Meta accepted the account. Ellich enables secure OAuth only after all four production-readiness checks pass.
Check connection readiness
Open Admin > Marketing > Instagram Publishing. Under Connection readiness, confirm all four checks show Ready:
- OAuth application confirms the Instagram Login configuration and required publishing and Insights scopes.
- Token encryption confirms that channel tokens can be stored as AES-256-GCM ciphertext instead of browser-readable text.
- Graph API release confirms that an explicit supported Meta Graph API version is configured.
- Public media delivery confirms that Meta can fetch signed media from a public HTTPS origin. Localhost and unsigned local files are not accepted.
Connect Instagram remains disabled until all four checks pass. Meta App Review and an Instagram professional account are also required; completing Ellich's checks does not bypass Meta's requirements.
Connect the professional account
Select Connect Instagram and complete Meta's authorization screen. Return to Ellich and confirm the intended username appears under Professional accounts with status Connected. Review the token expiration and refresh-due dates when shown.
The connection record is tenant-scoped. Ellich never treats a returned OAuth page, a saved account row, or an acknowledged warning as proof that content was published. A publication is confirmed only when Meta returns a real remote media ID.
Disconnect safely
Under Professional accounts, select Disconnect and confirm the account name. Disconnecting revokes Ellich's usable connection record. It does not delete posts already published on Instagram.
Pending publications are not silently marked successful after disconnection. They require reconnection and can appear as External action required in the Publication Calendar. Review or cancel those jobs separately.
Troubleshoot connection problems
If Connect Instagram is disabled, resolve the specific readiness card instead of repeatedly refreshing. If Meta returns to Ellich with a connection error, review the error code, professional-account status, granted scopes, App Review state, redirect URI, and configured Graph API version.
After reconnecting, verify the username in Ellich. Then use a human-approved Creative Project and the Publication Calendar for any publishing test. A connected account alone never authorizes automatic publishing.