How To Fix Snapchat [Troubleshooting Guide]

Snapchat is one of the most popular apps for chatting with friends, sending pictures, and even just talking. It can also be a lot of fun to play with the various filters while taking pics.

For the most part, Snapchat is an intuitive app that is easy to use even for beginners. You don’t need to be tech-savvy to have fun with the app. 

However, people do sometimes have problems with Snapchat. You might have the app freeze up on you and stop working.

Sometimes, your notifications might not go through to your phone, or you’ll start getting them late.

These annoying Snapchat issues can sour your experience when you’re trying to talk to your significant other or your best friends using the app.

Check out some fun Snapchat names for your best friends.

Is there a good way to fix Snapchat when it’s having problems? Continue reading to learn how to fix Snapchat problems.

This will ensure that you can keep using the app as intended. Once you understand what to do, it won’t be quite so inconvenient. 

Why Won’t Snapchat Load?

Why won’t Snapchat load like it normally do? There are potentially several reasons why Snapchat won’t load properly.

Occasionally, your phone might have problems when you don’t restart it often enough. This can cause other apps to stop working right as well. 

The cache for the Snapchat app might be too full. You could be experiencing some type of internet problem.

Perhaps your mobile data isn’t working because you’re in a spot where you don’t get a good signal from nearby towers.

Keep reading to learn how to try to fix issues like this, but understand that it might be hard to determine exactly what is causing Snapchat not to load.

Why Won’t My Snapchat Play Videos?

Having Snapchat videos sent to you and not being able to play them is frustrating indeed. You want to see what your friends or your crush sent you.

There is likely something wrong with the app if you can see the video notifications but aren’t able to play them.

It could be that the app itself is down, but it’s more likely that you’re experiencing glitches for one of many reasons. 

Below, you can see 10 common fixes that can get Snapchat working normally. It’s not easy to tell what exactly is wrong with the app when it isn’t working properly.

The most practical course of action is to just try the various fixes below to see if they get things working again. Hopefully, you’ll be able to play and send Snapchat videos soon enough. 

1. Check to See if Snapchat is Down

The first thing you should do is check to see if Snapchat is down. Snapchat is a popular app, and you’ll be able to find out if it isn’t working by going online.

This content was first published on GameDaft.com

Visit Downdetector’s Snapchat page to get the information that you need. If the app is down, then you’ll just have to wait for it to come back up to resume using it. 

You’ll also likely see people complaining about Snapchat not working on social media apps. Typically, when major apps and services stop working, you’ll see the situation start trending on Twitter.

Hopefully, the issues with the app will be resolved soon. It could be that maintenance is being done or the app could be dealing with some type of attack. 

2. Close and Reopen the App

Assuming that Snapchat isn’t down for everybody, the problem is going to be just related to your phone. There could be something wrong with the app, but it’s best to start with a simple course of action.

Try opening Snapchat and then close the app. After closing the app, try to reopen it to see if it loads properly this time. 

Sometimes this is enough to get things to work as intended. It might seem too simple, but this really might be all that you have to do. If you’re lucky, this will work and your apps will start working again.

If this didn’t help anything, then keep using the methods below to try to fix the problem. 

3. Restart Your Phone

Next, you should try restarting your smartphone. There might be an issue with the phone itself that you can solve by restarting it. It’s a good idea to restart your phone every so often.

Some people go months without restarting their phones, and this might cause errors to occur. 

Restart the phone and then check Snapchat once everything has come back up.

Is Snapchat working normally now? If it is, then you’ll be able to chat and enjoy yourself. If it isn’t working still, then something else is amiss. 

4. Does Snapchat Need an Update?

Apps need to be updated from time to time on your phone. You can make it so that apps will update automatically by giving them permission to do so.

If you haven’t done this, then you should get a prompt saying that it needs to be updated when trying to launch the app.

You might have to go to the Google Play store or the App Store and download the latest update for Snapchat. 

Some might even choose to uninstall and reinstall Snapchat to try to get things working again.

Either way, it’s worth checking to see if Snapchat needs to be updated. Simply downloading the latest version of Snapchat might fix all of your problems. It won’t take long to do this. 

It’s worth mentioning that you should keep your phone itself up to date. If you haven’t been updating your phone, it’d be wise to update it to the latest version.

This might take a minute to accomplish, but it’ll ensure that things run better. You’ll probably have fewer issues if you choose to update your phone as soon as possible. 

5. Check to See if You’re Experiencing Internet Problems

Internet problems might make it seem like Snapchat isn’t working properly.

Many people have to rely on WiFi due to their mobile data not working well inside their homes. If you don’t have towers close to your home, or if you have certain types of siding, you could experience such issues.

As you likely know, WiFi problems can make the internet run slow or not work properly. 

Simply restarting your router could help. Reboot your router and modem to see if the internet starts working better.

Restart your phone after the internet comes back up and see if Snapchat starts working again. This might be enough to fix the issue. 

6. Turn Off Your VPN

Virtual Private Networks (VPNs) are commonly used to browse the web safely. VPNs can certainly come in handy, but sometimes having a VPN on will make certain things stop working right.

You might need to turn your VPN off while using Snapchat. Try turning the VPN off and see if Snapchat loads properly once you do. 

This may or may not be the problem that is keeping you from using Snapchat. Many are able to use Snapchat with a VPN turned on. It could even come down to which VPN you’re using.

Some free VPNs are less reliable than the VPNs that you must pay a fee to be able to use. 

You can always just turn the VPN on when it’s necessary to do so. Use a VPN if you need to connect to public WiFi or when you want to change regions to access region-locked content on streaming services.

Leave the VPN off when you’re just chatting with friends on Snapchat. It might help you to enjoy a smoother experience. 

7. Check App Network Permissions

It’ll be worthwhile to check app network permissions. If Snapchat doesn’t have the right permissions, then it might not work properly.

For Snapchat to work, it needs to have permission to use the storage, camera, location, phone, and many other things. You can easily check the permissions in the Snapchat app:

Just go to your profile and hit the settings cog.

Hit permissions and you’ll be able to see any missing permissions. Missing permissions will say “tap to enable.”

Tap to enable the necessary permissions that will get the app working. 

You’ll have to go into permissions once tapping to give Snapchat the necessary functionality. It needs these permissions or it can’t function.

You might not have known this and declined to give permission when setting up the app. Fixing that mistake is simple and you’ll be able to start sending snaps very soon. 

8. Clear Snapchat App Cache

You might not know this, but it’s good to clear the Snapchat app cache now and then.

Apps download media and other files to your phone, but those files might have become corrupted.

Clearing the cache can fix any issues and get things back to normal. You won’t lose data or snaps by clearing the cache. 

To get started, open Snapchat and click your avatar. Hit the settings cog in the top right corner and then hit “clear cache.”

It’s easy to do, and it might get Snapchat to start working for you again.

Check out my post on Funny Snapchat Private Story Names.

9. Try Clearing Snapchat Conversations

Clearing a conversation is likely the last thing you want to do. Doing this will remove all of your sent and received Snaps.

You won’t be able to view any unread Snaps that have already been sent to you either. Sometimes it might be necessary to do this, though. 

To clear Snapchat conversations, open the app and click on your avatar to get to your profile page.

Hit the settings cog in the upper-right corner and then scroll down.

You should see “clear conversation” as one of the options.

Hit that and then confirm that you want to do this by hitting clear. 

There’s a good chance that this will get things working again. You shouldn’t try this until you’ve exhausted your other options, though.

There’s no reason to lose snaps unless you absolutely have to. Try the above options and you should be able to fix things without doing this. 

If nothing else works, then this is well worth trying. Hopefully, you’ll be able to solve the problems with Snapchat and get the app working smoothly once more.

This fix has been known to work to solve issues with Snapchat not working as intended. It’s just annoying that you have to get rid of all of the snaps using this method. 

10. Remove and Re-Add Friends

Another weird fix that might work involves removing friends and then re-adding them as friends. You can remove friends on Snapchat pretty easily.

You open the app and go to your profile by clicking your avatar. Go to “My Friends” and then press and hold over the friend that you wish to remove. 

Select more and then hit “remove friend.”

Once you’ve hit remove, they will not be on your friend’s list any longer.

You can then send them a fresh friend request whenever you’re ready.

This is something that has been known to help when you can’t send snaps properly. 

In Closing

You’ve learned about many different things that can cause Snapchat to stop working. It isn’t easy to figure out exactly what is wrong when snaps aren’t loading or when the app is simply not working.

Luckily, there are many easy fixes that can help you to get things back to normal. You’ll have an easier time if you start with simple fixes. 

Try closing and reopening the app to see if that fixes the issue. You might also want to restart your smartphone and reboot the modem and router.

Doing this could fix any issues that are preventing the app from loading. If this doesn’t fix the problem, then you’ll want to try other things. 

Clearing the cache could solve problems with corrupted files. You might need to update the app to get it working normally.

Updating your phone might help as well. If all else fails, then you might want to try clearing the conversations on your Snapchat. 

Remember that Snapchat could simply be down, too. This does happen from time to time for various reasons.

You can go online to check the status of Snapchat. If it is down, you’ll just have to be patient and wait for it to come back up.


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ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Jan has played video games since the early 1980s. He loves getting immersed in video games as a way to take his mind off stuff when the outside world gets too scary. A lifelong gamer, the big interest led to a job as a lecturer on game sound at the University of Copenhagen and several written articles on video games for magazines.

Read more on the About Page.