A Phantom that turns itself off is almost always doing it on purpose. PhantomBuster automatically pauses a Phantom when continuing would waste your execution time or put your connected account at risk, most often because your LinkedIn session cookie expired. Open the Phantom's console (Activity tab) to see the exact message, then match it to the cause below.
Did it stop, or did it just finish?
If you see "Input already processed" or a Success status, nothing went wrong: the Phantom worked through all of its input and stopped.
To collect more, give it new or updated input.
→ How to know when your Phantom or Workflow has finished running
Your session cookie expired or became invalid
Session cookies don't last forever. When yours expires, or becomes invalid because you logged out, changed your password, or the platform ended the session, the Phantom can no longer act for you and stops to avoid looking suspicious.
Reconnect your account with the PhantomBuster browser extension and relaunch.
→ How to Fix Expired or Invalid Session Cookie Errors
Your session cookie keeps expiring over and over
If reconnecting works for a while and then it expires again, repeatedly, the cookie isn't the real problem: the platform is flagging activity that doesn't look human (usage spikes), or LinkedIn is running one of its periodic enforcement waves.
Reconnecting again won't hold until you slow down:
- Stop everything and cool down. Don't retry, refresh, or launch anything for a few hours, ideally until the next day.
- Log out of LinkedIn and back in manually to get a fresh session, then reconnect in PhantomBuster.
- Lower your activity in the Phantom's Behavior step and stay within the recommended daily limits.
- Ramp back gradually: start at 10–20% of your normal volume and increase slowly once you've had a stable stretch with no disconnections.
→ Best Practices for Safe Social Media Automation · PhantomBuster Rate Limits: Daily Limits by Platform and Phantom
If it keeps expiring immediately on every account no matter what you try, it may be specific to your Workspace. Get in touch with our Customer Care Team.
You've run out of execution time or Phantom slots
Execution time and slots are limited by your plan. If you've used up your execution time for the cycle, scheduled runs stop until it resets or you upgrade.
→ How to Monitor and Manage your Phantom Slots and Execution Time
The run hit a time or system limit
A single run can stop if it exceeds the maximum run time, waits too long for new logs, or tries to run more executions in parallel than your workspace allows. Each has its own fix:
- Maximum Run Time Has Been Reached
- Waiting Time for New Logs Reached
- Maximum number of parallel executions reached
The schedule was turned off
On your Dashboard, the toggle on the Phantom card controls scheduled launches: grey = paused, so it only runs when you launch it manually.
Switch it back on to resume.
→ How to Schedule Your Phantoms to Run Automatically
Frequently asked questions
Why did my Phantom turn off by itself?
It's a protective auto-stop. Open the console > Activity tab to see the exact message and match it to the causes above, most often an expired session cookie.
My cookie keeps expiring over and over, how do I stop it?
Repeated expiry usually means the platform is flagging non-human activity. Cool down for a few hours, log back into the platform manually, reconnect, lower your activity to within the recommended daily limits, then ramp back up gradually. See Best Practices and Rate Limits.
My Phantom switches on and off even though I still have execution time left.
Check the console message: it's usually a session-cookie issue or a run/parallel-execution limit rather than execution time. If none of the causes above apply and time genuinely remains, contact Customer Care.
It says "Input already processed", is that an error?
No. It means the Phantom finished everything in your input. Add new input to collect more.
Did I lose my data when it stopped?
No, your existing results are kept.