If new messages are not showing up in the inbox, work through the checks below in order. The cause is usually in one of three places: the connection has dropped, the message is hidden behind a filter, or the screen's live connection has been cut.
You may be facing one of these three situations:
No messages arrive at all
The messages exist but I cannot see them in the list
Messages arrive, but late
No messages arrive at all
The most common cause is a dropped connection. When the connection is down, Meta does not notify us of new messages and nothing happens in the panel.
Look at the top of the inbox. A warning saying This account has no active connection means the connection has dropped.
Press the link next to the warning.
Reconnect
Sign in again with the same account on the page that opens. Your data stays as it is; past conversations are not deleted.
Return to the inbox once the connection is back.
If there is no warning but messages still do not arrive:
Confirm in the account switcher that you are on the right account. With several Instagram or WhatsApp accounts, the message may have landed in another account's inbox.
Check on your phone: does the message appear in the Instagram or WhatsApp app? If it does not, the problem is with the message itself, not the panel.
Open the connection page and renew the permissions. A connection whose permissions have expired can quietly stop working.
⚠️ When reconnecting, pick the same Instagram account or WhatsApp number. Picking a different one creates a new connection, and the old conversations stay with the old account.
Messages that arrived while the connection was down are not fetched retroactively. Meta retries those notifications for a limited time; after a long outage you may have to read the messages from that window in the phone app. That is why it matters to fix a connection warning the day you see it.
The messages exist but I cannot see them in the list
The message has arrived but is hidden behind a filter you have applied.
Clear the search box. A leftover word empties the list.
Switch to the All tab in the filter strip. Mine hides anything not assigned to you; Open hides closed conversations.
Select All connections in the connection strip. With one connection selected, the other's messages are not listed.
If you still cannot find the conversation, search the person's name; search covers closed conversations too (see Searching chats and messages).
If it is still missing after all of that, your visibility scope may be narrow: someone who only sees their own chats cannot find a chat assigned to somebody else under any filter. In that case ask your portfolio manager about your scope.
Messages arrive, but late
If a message only shows up when you reload the page by hand, the screen's live connection has been cut.
Bring the tab to the front. Browsers can suspend background tabs; the screen refreshes once when you return.
Check your network. Switching from Wi-Fi to mobile data drops the connection, and the browser reconnects within a few seconds.
Reload the page once. That rebuilds the live connection from scratch.
If you are on a corporate network, ask about the firewall. Some proxies cut long-lived connections, and the screen then only updates when you do something.
Try another browser or another device. If the problem only shows up on one device, it is that device's network.
A delay of a few seconds is normal: a message reaches Meta first and us second. If Meta delays the notification, the gap grows, and that is a delay on their side.
There is a practical way to work out where the delay sits: if the message is already in the Instagram or WhatsApp app on your phone but has not appeared in the panel for a few minutes, the problem is on our side or your network's. If it is late in both places at once, the delay is at Meta and there is nothing to do but wait.
How the live stream works and when it refreshes is covered in The live stream.
If the conversation list updates but the open chat does not, you are most likely on an older page: jumping to a message from search, or going back with Older messages, means new messages are not written onto that page. Tap the same conversation in the list again and it opens at the last message.
If the problem continues
When none of the above helps, try something firmer:
Sign out of the panel and sign in again.
Clear the data your browser has stored for this site.
Remove and set up the connection again from the connection page. This is a last resort; make sure you are on the right account before you do it.
Other known issues and limits
Comments do not land in the inbox. Comments on your posts are not messages and do not open a conversation. Comments are answered through automations.
Conversations of a disabled channel type are hidden. If a channel type has been switched off for the portfolio, that account's conversations are not listed and cannot be opened by address either.
A long number can appear instead of a name. Meta does not share every person's profile; the message still arrives.
A deleted conversation will not open. Clicking the link in a notification shows "This conversation could not be opened".
Messages do not pile up for a closed tab. While the tab is closed the live stream is closed too; when you open it, the screen draws current data.
Including these details when you write to Support gets it solved much faster: which account you are on, whether the message appears in the phone app, roughly when it arrived, and whether there is a connection warning at the top of the screen.
If you have worked through every step and the problem persists, contact our Support team.