Waiting 25 weeks on my first unemployment payment - what worked for you?

I applied for unemployment in Cincinnati 25 weeks ago and the status page still says pending. I have read a lot of threads here and could not find my exact situation. I called the state line four times and only reached a recording. Is there a step I could have missed?

Thanks for writing this out. I went through something close to it last year, and it got easier once I kept a simple log of every call and form.