Troubleshooting
Symptoms, causes and fixes for the bot, permissions, push notifications, the WebSocket API, sign-in and boards.
Find your symptom, check the cause, then follow the fix. If nothing here helps, see Contact for what to include in a bug report.
The bot does not join or does not reply
Symptom. You turned the bot on, but it is not in your chat, or it stays silent when a viewer suggests a game.
Causes and fixes.
- The bot is off or unsaved. On Dashboard > Bot, turn on Active and select Save. Save triggers an immediate sync, so the bot should join within moments.
- The bot joined with the wrong name. It joins the channel named by the Twitch name you had when you signed in. If you changed your Twitch name, sign out and sign in again, then select Save on the Bot page.
- It is reconnecting. If the bot loses its connection to Twitch chat, it retries after 30 seconds. The wait doubles on each failure, up to 5 minutes. There is no status light for this in the dashboard, so give it a few minutes.
- The message did not look like a suggestion. The bot replies only to chat messages that look like a viewer suggesting a game. You cannot change the phrases it looks for.
- The cooldown is running. After a reply, the bot waits for the cooldown you set (5 to 3600 seconds) before it replies again. Lower it on the Bot page if replies feel rare.
- The response message is invalid. It must be 300 characters or fewer, on one line, and must not start with
/or.. The Bot page shows the error when you save.
About the first message. When you turn the bot on, it posts one line: NextQuest bot connected. When someone suggests a game in chat, I'll reply. It has no link on purpose, so first-message link filters do not ban the bot. It posts this once each time you turn the bot on.
Learn more: Twitch chat bot.
Followers-only blocks a real follower
Symptom. Your board is set to followers only. A viewer who follows you on Twitch sees Followers only. when they suggest, or Only followers can vote on this queue. when they vote.
Cause. NextQuest checks follow and subscription status live with a call to Twitch, using the viewer's own Twitch login. If that call fails, the viewer counts as a plain viewer. Common reasons are a login saved before NextQuest asked for follow access, an expired login that cannot refresh, and a short Twitch outage.
Fix. Ask the viewer to sign out of NextQuest and sign in with Twitch again. The new sign-in grants the permissions the check needs. Then ask them to try again.
The Settings page also holds the audience rules: Who can suggest and Who can vote. See Audience permissions.
Push notifications do not arrive
Symptom. The bell shows a notification, but your phone or browser shows nothing.
Work down this list.
- Push is unavailable. If the Notifications page says
Push notifications aren't available right now., the server is missing its push setup. This is a NextQuest-side problem. Contact us. - The browser has not given permission. Turn on Push notifications on the Notifications page. If the page says notifications are blocked, allow them in your browser's site settings and reload.
- You are on iPhone or iPad. Push works only after you add NextQuest to your Home Screen. In Safari, choose Share, then Add to Home Screen, then open NextQuest from there and turn push on again.
- The section is muted. A muted section stores notifications as already read and never pushes them. Check the Mute switch for that section on the Notifications page.
- The notification is old. A push that cannot be delivered within 15 minutes is dropped. This happens when a device is offline for a while. The notification is still listed on the site.
- Too many devices. Up to 10 devices can receive push. A new device removes the oldest. Check the Devices list and add yours again.
- Test it. Select Send test notification. If the test arrives, push works and one of the causes above applies to the other notifications.
Changelog notifications from NextQuest never push.
Learn more: Notifications and push.
The WebSocket will not connect
Symptom. Your overlay or script cannot connect, or the connection drops.
| What you see | Cause | Fix |
|---|---|---|
| HTTP 400 | The request is not a WebSocket upgrade. Opening the address in a browser tab does this. | Connect from code with wss://<host>/api/ws. |
| HTTP 401 | The URL has a token parameter. |
Remove it. Send the key in the first frame. See Authentication. |
| HTTP 429 | 5 sockets from your address are still waiting to authenticate. | Wait 10 seconds, or close the sockets that never sent a key. Open one at a time. |
Close 1008, Invalid authentication payload. |
The first frame is not {"type":"authenticate","apiKey":"..."} or the key is not 64 hex digits. |
Check the JSON and the key. |
Close 1008, Authentication failed. |
The key is wrong or old, or the API is off. | Check Dashboard > API. Select Enable API if it is off. Regenerate if you lost the key. |
Close 1008, Authentication must be text. or Authentication message too large. |
The first frame was binary or over 4096 bytes. | Send a short text frame. |
Close 1000, API disabled |
You turned the API off while connected. | Select Enable API. Your key still works. |
Close 1000, API key regenerated |
You regenerated the key while connected. | Use the new key. The old one no longer works. |
| Code 1006 right after connecting | You did not send the first frame within 10 seconds. | Send it in the open handler. |
| Code 1006 about 90 seconds after connecting | Your client sent no data for 90 seconds. | Send a text frame every 25 to 30 seconds. See WebSocket connection. |
| Connected, but no events | A newer connection took over, or nothing happened on your boards. | Close other clients. Perform an action and watch. |
| Error parsing JSON | You parsed an empty keepalive frame. | Skip frames with no content. |
The dashboard shows a key once, after your first Enable or after Regenerate. If you did not save it, select Regenerate.
You land on a closed beta page
Symptom. You open the dashboard and NextQuest sends you to /beta.
Cause. Only hand-picked streamers can manage boards during the closed beta. Your Twitch account is not on the list. Viewing, voting and suggesting still work.
Fix. Use the form on that page to join the waitlist. If you think you are on the list, sign in with the Twitch account that was invited. See Closed beta and Closed beta and pricing.
You cannot suggest or vote
The message tells you why. Find yours.
Suggesting
| Message | Cause | Fix |
|---|---|---|
Followers only. or Subs only. |
The streamer limits who can suggest. | Follow or subscribe on Twitch. If you already do, sign out and in again. |
You've got N suggestions waiting for review... |
You hit your limit of pending suggestions for this streamer. | Wait until the streamer reviews them. |
This board isn't accepting suggestions yet. |
The board has no intake section. | Ask the streamer to set one. |
This streamer isn't taking suggestions for this game. |
The game is on their blacklist. | Pick another game. |
This streamer isn't taking suggestions for adult games. |
The streamer blocks adult games. | Pick another game. |
This game was passed on recently. You can suggest it again from ... |
The streamer rejected it and the re-suggest wait is still running. | Suggest it on the date shown. |
This game is already on the board. |
It is already there. | Vote for it instead. |
You've already suggested this game. |
You suggested it already. | Nothing to do. |
... was removed from the catalogue and can't be suggested. |
The game is unavailable. | See below. |
Whoa, pump the brakes... |
You passed 5 suggestions in a minute. | Wait a minute. |
Voting
| Message | Cause | Fix |
|---|---|---|
Only followers can vote on this queue. or Only subs can vote on this queue. |
The streamer limits who can vote. | Follow or subscribe. If you already do, sign out and in again. |
| No vote buttons on a card | The section has voting off. | Only the streamer can change this. |
That game's been removed from the catalogue... |
The game is unavailable. | Your earlier votes stay. You cannot add new ones. |
Easy there... |
You passed 20 votes in a minute. | Wait a minute. |
You must be signed in with Twitch to suggest or vote. Searching has its own limit of 30 searches per minute.
Learn more: Suggesting a game, Voting, Limits and defaults.
A game shows as Unavailable
Symptom. A card shows an Unavailable marker and you cannot open it or vote on it.
Cause. The game was removed from the NextQuest catalogue. The card stays on the board and keeps its votes. NextQuest refuses new votes, new suggestions and adding it to a board. A pending suggestion for it stays in the inbox and cannot be accepted.
Fix. Nothing on your side. If the game returns to the catalogue, everything works again. As a streamer, you can remove the card from the board yourself.
Learn more: Game and company pages.
You were logged out everywhere
Symptom. You signed out on one device and now all your devices ask you to sign in.
Cause. Signing out ends every session for your account, not only the one you used. Regenerating the API key also ends all your other sessions. Turning the API back on does not. The browser where you clicked stays signed in.
Fix. Sign in with Twitch again on each device. Your boards and settings are unchanged. Signing out also removes push notifications from that browser. Turn them back on from the Notifications page.