If Publish is greyed out in the publish panel, the Atlas Page Builder app embed is not switched on for the theme you are publishing into. Every page Atlas publishes depends on it, so publishing is blocked until it is on. The fix is one click: turn on the Atlas page builder switch in the publish panel, under the theme picker. Atlas confirms with App embed enabled, the switch disappears, and Publish unlocks.
In this article:
Why this happens
The app embed is what loads the code your Atlas pages need to render. It is enabled per theme, not per store, and it is off by default on any theme where it has never been enabled.
Atlas checks the theme selected under Publishing to: each time you open the publish panel, and again whenever you pick a different theme. While it checks, the button reads Checking app embed status... for a moment. That is normal, not the problem this article covers.
The most common situations:
Situation | Why the embed is off |
You are publishing to a theme for the first time | It has never been enabled there |
You installed or bought a new theme | New themes start with all app embeds off |
You duplicated a theme and are publishing to the copy | The copy may not have carried the setting |
Someone turned it off in the theme editor | It can be toggled off by anyone editing the theme |
How to fix it
In the publish panel, check the theme under
Publishing to:is the one you want.Find the
Atlas page builderrow under it, withTurn on to publish. This adds Atlas to your theme's app embeds.Turn on the switch. It reads
Turning on…while Atlas adds the embed to that theme.Atlas confirms with
App embed enabled. The row disappears andPublishunlocks.
The switch changes the theme for you, so there is no theme editor to open and nothing to save.
If the switch does not work
If Atlas cannot turn the embed on, the row shows We couldn't turn it on. Try again. Turn the switch on once more. If it fails again, select Open theme editor under the message. Shopify's theme editor opens with the Atlas Page Builder embed already switched on: select Save there, then return to Atlas. Atlas re-checks when you come back, keeps checking for the next few minutes, and confirms with App embed enabled when it sees the change.
You can also do it entirely in the theme editor, for the theme you are publishing into: Theme settings, then App embeds, turn on Atlas Page Builder, then Save.
The full walkthrough, including doing it for several themes, is in How to enable the Atlas Page Builder app embed.
The step that gets skipped
Pressing Save in the theme editor. This only applies when you turn the embed on in the theme editor; the switch in Atlas needs no save. Opening the theme editor from Atlas turns the toggle on, but the change is not applied until you save the theme. If you close the editor without saving, the embed stays off and Atlas will report it as off, correctly. Shopify's editor shows its own "activated" message as soon as the toggle flips, before you have saved. That message is not confirmation. App embed enabled in Atlas is.
If you have done this more than once and it keeps not working, this is almost certainly the reason.
If Atlas still says it is off
Work through these in order:
Confirm you enabled it on the right theme. The theme editor opens on one specific theme. Check the theme name at the top of the editor against the theme you selected in the publish panel.
Confirm you saved. Go back into the theme editor and check the toggle is still on. If it is off again, the save did not go through.
Check your permissions. Editing app embeds requires theme editing permission. If you are a staff member on someone else's store, you may not have it.
Let Atlas check again. Atlas re-checks when you come back to it from the theme editor. Closing the publish panel and opening it again also runs a fresh check.
Reload Atlas. Close and reopen the app from your Shopify admin.
If the embed is on and saved, and Atlas still reports it as inactive after a re-check, contact support from the chat bubble in Atlas, or at support@helloatlas.io, with your store URL and the exact name of the theme.
If it keeps turning itself off
An embed that was working and is now off usually means the theme changed.
You switched themes. The new theme needs its own embed enabled. See Why did my Atlas features stop working after I switched themes?
You restored a theme backup or reverted to an older version. Older versions predate the embed being enabled.
Your theme was updated by its developer. Some theme updates replace theme settings.
💡 Add "check the Atlas Page Builder app embed" to whatever you do after any theme change. The theme extensions card on your dashboard shows all three Atlas extensions at a glance, with this embed as the Store builder switch, and takes two seconds to read.