Discord Bot Not Responding? Work Through These 10 Things
Almost always permissions, occasionally an outage
Staff Writer · · 3 min read
A bot that stopped responding is rarely actually down. In most cases it's a permission or configuration problem on the server side, and you can fix it yourself in a couple of minutes.
These are worth working through roughly in order, because the first three account for the large majority of cases.
1. Check the bot's role position
Discord permissions are hierarchical, which means a bot cannot manage, assign, or moderate any role positioned above its own, no matter what permissions you've granted it.
If your leveling bot isn't handing out roles or your moderation bot can't time anyone out, check this first. Go to Server Settings, then Roles, and drag the bot's role above the roles it needs to manage.
2. Check channel permission overrides
A channel can override server-wide permissions, and when it does, the override wins. So if a bot works everywhere except one channel, that channel almost certainly has an override blocking View Channel, Send Messages, or Use Application Commands.
Right click the channel, go to Edit Channel, then Permissions, and check both the bot's role and the bot itself.
3. Check whether slash commands registered
Global slash commands can take up to an hour to propagate when a bot is first added. If commands worked before and vanished, or never appeared at all, the bot may have been invited without the applications.commands scope. That scope didn't always exist, so older invite links sometimes lack it.
The fix is to re-invite the bot using a current link from its official site. Re-inviting does not remove the bot or reset its data, it just updates the granted scopes.
4. Confirm the bot is actually online
Look at the member list. A bot showing offline is a problem on the bot's end, and nothing you change in server settings will help, so check the bot's support server or status page.
5. Check for a prefix change
If the bot uses text commands, confirm the prefix hasn't changed. A lot of bots have moved to slash commands only, which quietly breaks every text command people had memorized.
6. Check whether you're rate limited
If a bot goes quiet for everyone at once, across every channel, Discord may be rate limiting it. This is usually temporary and resolves on its own within minutes.
7. Check for a second instance
Two invites of the same bot, or a self-hosted fork running alongside the official one, causes commands to fail unpredictably or fire twice. Search your member list for duplicates.
8. Check Integrations settings
Server Settings has an Integrations section where individual commands can be disabled or restricted to specific roles and channels. It's easy to change once and forget about entirely, so if one specific command is failing while others work, look here.
9. Restart your client properly
A stale session occasionally shows a bot as unresponsive when it isn't. Fully quit Discord rather than closing the window, then reopen it.
10. Ask in the bot's support server
If none of the above applies, the bot's support server is the fastest route. Most maintained bots run one, and most link it from their top.gg listing or their App Directory page. Permission problems are self-service, an actual outage isn't, and you'll want to know which one you're looking at.
The listing is also worth checking for a different reason. If a bot's last update was three years ago and its support server is empty, the problem may be that nobody is maintaining it any more.