Customers can't book anything: no available times, greyed-out dates or products missing

When customers say "it's not possible to book", the cause is almost always a setting, and it lives on one of a few screens. What the customer sees points you to the right step:

What the customer sees	Most likely cause	Go to
"This rental station is currently not available for booking." and your contact details, instead of products	no time period covering today or later, or no product that can be booked	Steps 2 and 3
Products show, but No available times in the time list, or dates you expected are greyed out	open dates, opening hours or time rules	Steps 2, 5, 6 and 8
One product is missing while others show	the product is not on an active lock, its quantity is 0 at a manned location, or its session lengths don't fit	Steps 3 and 7
A product card says Fully booked	everything is booked, held in someone's checkout, or blocked by blocking time	Step 6
A product card says "Not available on Mondays" (or another weekday)	the product's bookable weekdays	Step 9
Checkout says "What you selected is no longer available for this time. Please choose another time."	someone took the last unit a moment earlier, or it is held in another customer's checkout	Step 6
Checkout says "We are sorry, it was not possible to create a booking for the current time", "The payment could not be started." or another payment message	usually payments, not the time	Step 4

Work down the steps in order. The first ones take a minute and catch most cases.

Step 1: Look at the readiness strip and the Locations list first

Rentalbuddy checks most setup problems for you. Look there before anything else.

Home: once your setup checklist is done, a notice Locations not taking bookings appears when something is wrong. It names the location (Open location) or counts them (View locations). If payments are missing, it says "No location can take bookings until payments are set up." with Configure payments.
Locations list: a warning icon after a location's name. Hover it to see what is missing, for example "Beach is not taking bookings — missing: Last time period ended 2026-08-31."
The location's page: the strip This location is not taking bookings under the location name lists the open steps as links.

The reasons you can see, and where each is fixed:

Reason	What it means	Fix it in
No products to book	the location has no rental product and no event	Products, Step 3
Every product has quantity 0	Manned location where every rental product is at quantity 0	Products, Step 3
No locks added	Unmanned location with no lock that takes bookings (storage and access-point locks don't count)	Locks tab, Step 3
All locks are switched off	every lock at the location is inactive	Locks tab, Step 3
No lock has a product yet	active locks exist but none carries a product	Locks tab, Step 3
Locks can't create PIN codes	only old Igloo locks typed in by Bluetooth ID, with no way to get codes	Locks tab and the lock guide
No session lengths customers can book	time-slot location where no product has a session length that fits	Booking experience tab, Step 7
Book button not set up	you have not chosen how customers reach the booking, or the page address is invalid	Book button tab, Step 10
No time periods set	no time period covers today or any later date	Open dates tab, Step 2
Last time period ended (with a date)	the season ended and no new period was created	Open dates tab, Step 2
Configure payments	Stripe is not connected	Settings → Payments, Step 4

On the location's own strip an ended season also shows as No time periods set. The lock reasons only apply to Unmanned locations.

Locks that customers can book but that give no code are not a reason here: the location still takes bookings, the customers just get no code. They are shown in red, as Bookings without PIN codes on Home and on the location's Locks tab. See the guide for customers who got no PIN code.

Know what the checks do not cover. A clean strip does not guarantee bookings:

hours unticked in Pickup hours / Return hours, and custom closed dates (Steps 5 and 8),
whether your website page really shows the booking button (Step 10),
locations with Location Active switched off, which are never flagged, although they still take bookings.

Step 2: Check that a time period covers the date (season ended?)

This is by far the most common cause, especially at the start of a season and right after New Year.

Bookings are only possible on dates inside a time period. No period covering the date means nothing is bookable that day, with no error message.

Go to Locations and look at the Active open date column. Hover the icon: Within scheduled open dates is fine. Open dates start in the future means nothing can be booked until then. No active or upcoming open dates means nothing can be booked at all.
Open the location and go to the Open dates tab.
Under Time Periods, check the status of each period: Active, Scheduled, Ended or Dates not set.
If last season's period has Ended, press the copy icon (Copy timeperiod) on it, or Create new time period, and set Period start and Period end for this season.
Press Save.

Watch out for:

Gaps. Nothing can be booked between two periods. "Bookings only go to the end of February" usually means the period ends there.
Overlaps. Two periods that share a date cannot be saved. The period says "Time periods can't overlap".
A brand-new location starts with one period that is open around the clock for five years, so it is bookable from day one. If you narrowed it to a season, check the dates cover the day you are testing.
A season about to end. Up to 14 days before the current period ends with nothing after it, the Open dates tab warns "The current time period ends on … and nothing is set after it." and Home lists the location under Worth reviewing. Add the next period before that date.

The full behaviour of this tab is in the opening hours guide.

Step 3: Check that products can be booked at this location

What decides this depends on the location's Staff presence (shown on the Location settings tab).

Unmanned locations: the product must be on an active lock

At a self-service location, a rental product is only offered when at least one active lock at that location carries it. The number of active locks carrying the product is also how many can be booked at the same time. The inventory number on the product does not decide it.

Open the location and go to the Locks tab.
Look for warnings at the top, such as "Warning: All locks at this location are inactive." / "Customers will not see any products in the booking widget." or "Warning: No product is assigned to any lock at this location."
Check that each lock that should be bookable has a product and is active. As the tooltip says: "When a lock is active, customers can book the product on that lock. When it is inactive, that product is hidden and cannot be booked."
If you switched locks off for the winter, switch them back on (Activate all locks). Activating counts toward your plan's active lock limit.
Assigning products to locks is saved with Save at the top of the page.

A product you just created shows "Assign this product to a lock at … to make it bookable." with Assign to a lock. An older product that no lock carries shows "Not bookable yet: no lock at … has this product." Adding, activating and replacing locks is explained in the lock guide.

If you took one broken unit out of service by switching its lock off, your bookable quantity dropped by one.

Manned locations: check the product's units

At a Manned location there are no locks. Customers can book as many as the product's Number of units under Inventory ("How many units do you have available to rent (e.g. 1-4)."). Open Products, open the product and check that number.

A rental product at quantity 0 is taken off sale: customers don't see it at all, and the product says "Hidden from customers: the quantity is 0. Raise the quantity to put it back on sale". If every rental product is at 0, the location is flagged Every product has quantity 0.

Step 4: Checkout fails with "not possible to create a booking for the current time"

When a customer gets through to checkout and then sees "We are sorry, it was not possible to create a booking for the current time" or "The payment could not be started. Please try again or contact the location." although times were free, look at payments before the times:

Stripe not connected. If the readiness strip or Home says Configure payments, open Settings → Payments and complete the Stripe connection. Stripe counts as connected once it says card payments are enabled; what Stripe still wants from you is spelled out on Settings → Payments (and on Home under Stripe needs your attention when payments are affected).
No payment method in Stripe. Customers see "Online payment is not available right now. Please contact the location to complete your booking.", and Home and Settings → Payments show a red notice. Turn card payments back on in Stripe.
A total too small to pay online. A booking that costs something but less than Stripe's smallest payment for your currency shows "This amount is too small to pay online." Check the price and any promo code.
The price or the time changed. "The price of your booking has changed. Please refresh the page and try again." means prices changed while the customer's booking window was open; they refresh and book again. "What you selected is no longer available for this time. Please choose another time." means someone took the time a moment earlier (Step 6).
Product problems. Home can show a product issue such as "Kayak can't be booked" (no session length that fits, no price, or a day price missing among the first seven days) with Open product. Open the product to see what needs fixing.

Customers see these messages in the language they are booking in. Details are in the Stripe connection guide and the payment failed guide.

Step 5: One weekday (or the whole period) is dead: check the weekly hours

Inside a time period each weekday has its own Open and Close time and its own Pickup hours and Return hours.

On the Open dates tab, open the time period that covers the date and find the weekday the customer tried.
Make sure Closed is not ticked, and that both Open and Close are filled in (or To end of day is ticked).
Open Pickup hours and Return hours and check the counters. A day whose hours are all unticked looks open on this screen and offers nothing.
Close is the last time a rental can start or end; nothing after it is offered. To allow a return at midnight, tick To end of day instead of typing 23:59 or 00:00. Close then shows 24:00, or "Midnight" if your account uses the 12-hour clock. Customers see "Midnight" or 24:00 as the last return time, and the booking afterwards reads 00:00 (12:00 AM) on the next day.
Press Save.

Opening and closing times always sit on the location's Booking interval: a time between two steps is moved for you (open later, close earlier), so an opening time like 09:30 on an hourly location becomes 10:00 instead of leaving the day without times.

To give several days the same hours, use the copy icon on a day ("Copy {day} to…", for example "Copy Monday to…"). It copies the day's hours, including pickup and return times. The menu offers All days and then each other day with its hours (or "Closed"); a check mark shows the days that already match. Nothing is saved until you press Save.

Step 6: Everything looks booked, but it isn't (or shouldn't be)

Availability is the number of units minus every overlapping booking that is not cancelled and not returned. In the customer's time list, a time where every unit is taken is greyed out with a Booked tag (on Fixed time slots locations: Sold out). Several things quietly eat into it:

Blocking time after booking. On the Open dates tab under Booking Rules, this blocks each unit for that long after every booking. It works both ways: a new booking must also leave its own blocking time free before the next booking on the same unit. With 2 hours of blocking time and a booking from 14:00 to 16:00, a new booking 12:00–14:00 or 11:00–13:00 is refused, while 10:00–12:00 fits. A long buffer on short rentals can use up most of the day. Set it to what your turnaround really needs.
A rental that is still running. A booking blocks its unit until its booked end time, plus blocking time. If the customer brought the item back early, mark the booking as returned so the rest of the time frees up.
Another customer in checkout. While someone is paying, their units are held. The hold is released about 7 minutes after the booking was started, and a job that runs every minute releases it. A unit that "disappears" and comes back a few minutes later is expected, not a fault. The same happens after a failed payment.
Lead time. Time before start that you can book (per time period) can push the first bookable start far ahead. A value that reaches past midnight closes all of today, which looks exactly like "fully booked". Set it to -59 minutes to let customers book the current hour.
Minimum booking length. Under Booking Length Limits, times that don't fit the minimum can't be booked. A free start time whose minimum length would run into another booking is greyed out with Min … (for example Min 2h); when the minimum would run past closing time there is no tag, the time just can't be completed. A minimum longer than the day's opening hours leaves the day looking fully booked. A value of 0 means no limit.
15- or 30-minute interval. Pickup and return ticks work per hour, so all quarter or half hours inside an hour follow that hour's tick. Nothing after Close is offered.

Step 7: Time-slot locations: products hidden because their session lengths don't fit

On locations that use Fixed time slots (Booking experience tab), a product is hidden from customers when none of its session lengths fits the booking interval. After the save, customers see nothing wrong: the product is simply not there.

The Booking experience tab has a warning icon: "Some products have no bookable session length and are hidden from the booking flow."
On the Locations list, a warning icon in the Booking flow column says, for example, "Kayak can't be booked: its session lengths don't fit the time slots."
The product page says "None of these lengths fit the location's time slots, so customers can't book this product."
If this is true for every product at the location, the location is flagged No session lengths customers can book.

Changing the Booking interval on the Open dates tab of a time-slot location warns you first: Products will disappear from the booking flow. Keep current interval backs out. After Save anyway, fix the session lengths on the Booking experience tab. See the customer flow and booking experience guide.

Step 8: Check for a custom date that closes the day

Custom dates override the normal hours for single dates. A date you closed for a storm or a holiday stays closed until you remove it.

On the Open dates tab, check the Custom dates list. A date with all hours unticked is fully closed. Remove it with the bin icon, or tick the hours you want to open, and press Save. A custom date can only narrow a day, never open hours outside the weekday's normal times.

Tip: to close for bad weather, use Custom dates, not your locks. Switching every lock off hides all products, and customers see the "not available for booking" page instead of one closed day.

Step 9: Only one product is missing on some days: bookable weekdays

If a product can be booked on some days but not others while everything else works, check the product itself. Open Products, open the product and look for Bookable weekdays. It limits the day a booking can start. With nothing selected, all days are allowed.

In the booking flow, the product card shows for example "Not available on Mondays" on a blocked day. With Fixed time slots, blocked days cannot be picked in the date bar. If several products in the cart have no weekday in common, customers see "These products have no shared bookable weekdays. Remove a product or change your selection." The products guide has the details.

Step 10: The booking page itself doesn't work, or you are testing the wrong location

Book button not set up on the readiness strip means customers have no way in yet. Choose how customers book on the Book button tab.
If the page opens but shows no booking button, or a link lands on your front page, see the guide on booking links that go to the wrong page.
Open dates, hours, locks and products are all per location. With several locations, it is easy to fix one and test the button of another. Check the location name at the top of the page, and open the location's own booking link from the Book button tab.
To try the whole booking yourself, use Make a test booking in the location page's top bar, next to Save; it is there on every tab of the location. It is greyed out while the location can't take bookings yet ("This location can't take bookings yet. Finish the steps in the list below first.") and while the current tab has unsaved changes ("Save your changes first. A test booking uses what's saved."). It books through your real booking page, is left out of your numbers and is cancelled automatically after 30 minutes. A test visit shows rentals only: events, gift cards and memberships are hidden.

Step 11: The whole account has been deactivated

If you see Your account has been deactivated when you log in, Rentalbuddy has deactivated the account. Its locations take no new bookings, although bookings that are already paid can still be picked up and returned. The booking button and booking page stop loading, and customers can't extend or move bookings either. Contact Rentalbuddy support, or your partner if a partner manages your account (the screen shows whom to contact).

If none of this helped

Contact support and include:

the location name,
the exact date and time the customer tried to book,
which product,
what the customer saw (no products, No available times, Fully booked, or an error at checkout, ideally with a screenshot).

Common questions

Why can't customers book after a certain date, like 31 December? The time period ends on that date. Create the next period on the location's Open dates tab, or move its Period end.

The date is green in the calendar but checkout says it's not possible to book the current time. Why? That message usually comes from payments, not availability. Check Settings → Payments: it says what Stripe still needs, or whether no payment method is switched on.

My kayaks don't show up when customers press Book, but I can see them in the admin. Why? At an Unmanned location a product only shows while an active lock carries it. Open the location's Locks tab and check that the locks are active and have the product assigned.

Why does it say fully booked when nothing is booked? Usually another customer is in checkout (the hold ends after about 7 minutes), or blocking time or a lead time is blocking the hours. Check Booking Rules and Time before start that you can book on the Open dates tab.

The location is open but every test booking fails on one weekday. Why? Check that weekday's Closed box and the counters under Pickup hours and Return hours. A day with every hour unticked looks open but offers nothing.

One product disappeared from the booking page at our staffed location. Its quantity is probably 0, which takes it off sale. Open the product and raise Number of units.

I switched off all locks to close for a thunderstorm and now customers get an error. What should I do? Switch the locks back on and close the day under Custom dates on the Open dates tab instead.

What does "Locations not taking bookings" on Home mean? At least one location is missing something customers need to book. Open it, or look at the warning icon on the Locations list, to see which step is missing.

What does "Booked" or "Min 2h" next to a time mean? Booked: every unit is taken at that time. Min 2h: the time is free, but the minimum booking length would run into another booking.

Why is a booking refused right before another booking, although that time looks free? Blocking time after booking works both ways: a new booking must leave its own blocking time free before the next booking on the same unit. Shorten it on the Open dates tab if it is longer than your turnaround needs.

Where did "Match all days to Monday" go? It was replaced by a copy icon on each day. Press it on the day whose hours you want to copy, choose All days or single days, then press Save.

Where is the Make a test booking button? In the location page's top bar, next to Save, on every tab of the location. It is greyed out until the location can take bookings, and while the tab has unsaved changes.

Our booking page stopped loading and we see "Your account has been deactivated". Rentalbuddy has switched the account off, so no new bookings, extensions or moves are possible. Contact Rentalbuddy support, or your partner if one manages your account.

Is my location deactivated? Check the location's readiness strip and the Locations list first. The Location Active switch does not stop bookings, so if customers can't book, the cause is one of the steps above.