No wonder, with over 350 million monthly active users, Snapchat is one of the most popular social media apps in the world.

Whether it’s for keeping in touch with close friends via Snap Streaks or sending the occasional life update, Snapchat has carved a niche for itself in the messaging and photo-sharing space.

But, unfortunately like every other app, Snapchat also faces problems from time to time. In other words, Snapchat also has a tendency to stop working occasionally.

So, currently if Snapchat is not working properly on your respective Android or iPhone, don’t worry! We’re saying this because in this guide, we have discussed as many as 11 of the best solutions that you can try your hand at to make the Snapchat app functional again.

Why Is Snapchat Not Working?

If you are wondering “Why isn’t my Snapchat working”, let us tell you the reasons “Why isn’t Snapchat working?” or “Why won’t Snapchat open?” are related to network connectivity issues, server outages, app crashes, and more.

However, as already said, there is nothing to worry about when this handy guide is there to help you troubleshoot the “Snapchat not working” issue.

So, let’s not waste time and start troubleshooting Snapchat not working issue with these solutions:

Solutions To Fix Snapchat When It’s Not Working!

Before you miss snaps and messages from friends and family, apply these “Snapchat not working” workarounds.

Point to Consider: You don’t have to try them all, just work your way down until you succeed in solving the issue.

Basic Solutions: It’s Always a Good Idea to Start With Basic Troubleshooting

Solution 1: Restart Your iPhone or Android Phone

One of the easiest troubleshooting solutions that you should try before proceeding is to restart your phone. 

While it may seem obvious, if the app isn’t opening or working as intended, a simple restart can often fix problems. So, what are you waiting for? Give a quick restart to your respective Android or iPhone and see if that fixes “Snapchat not working issue” for you. 

However, in case this didn’t work out, you can try other solutions listed below to fix the “Snapchat not working” issue.

Solution 2: Check Your Internet Connection

Checking your internet connection is one of the underestimated solutions that you shouldn’t ignore. 

Wonder why? Well, you never know whether your network provider is experiencing connectivity issues temporarily, or you have exhausted the data limit or your network data has been turned off! Any of these causes the apps on your phone to not work properly, including Snapchat.

So, you should definitely check your internet connection before trying out the advanced solutions.

Now, if the internet turns out to be the culprit, in that case, you may consider contacting your network provider or switching from Wi-Fi network to mobile data/vice versa.

However, if the issue remains the same, try the next lined up solution.

Solution 3: Check If Snapchat Service Is Down

It is also always suggested to check if it is a server outage of the service that is leading to Snapchat suddenly not working on your end. Well, because a down server can cause the Snapchat app to stop working until it’s up and working again.

However, do note that Snapchat does not host a real-time live status page. Hence, you can check third-party websites like Downdetector.in  to know if other Snapchat users are also facing issues with the service or not!

Check Snapchat Server Status at Downdetector.in

In addition to that, you can also keep an eye on Snapchat’s official support account on Twitter as there, the company posts updates about its server outages and downtimes.

Here, it’s worth noting that if there is an outage, there’s not much you can do until Snapchat service is itself restored. In the opposite case, that is, if you don’t see the report, the solutions below are still there to provide help.

Solution 4: Close and Restart the Snapchat App

You might not be aware that you are unable to open Snapchat because you are opening it from the “Recent Menu”. This happened with so many users already. So, in order to remedy this, what is suggested is to completely close Snapchat and open it again. To do so:

  • Step 1: Use the “Swipe-up Gesture” from the bottom or head to the “Recent Apps Switcher.”
  • Step 2: Then, swipe on the “Snapchat Card” to close the app. 
Close the Snapchat app.
  • Step 3: Once the app gets closed, tap on the “Snapchat App Icon” to restart it.

However, in case if closing and restarting the Snapchat app does not fix the issue and the app is still not working for you, do not get disheartened and move on to the next solution. 

Solution 5: Force Stop Snapchat

Sometimes, what happens is, the app might start working fine after you restart it. However, if doing so doesn’t help resolve the issue, you can force close Snapchat to ensure Snapchat works properly because whenever an app misbehaves, the force stop process will entirely suspend all activities.

That being said, here is how you can force stop the Snapchat app on your device:

  • Step 1: Long-press on the “Snapchat app icon.”
  • Step 2: Then, tap on the little “i” button in the pop-up context menu. This opens the “App Info” menu. 
Tap on the Snapchat ‘i’ icon.
  • Step 3: From the menu, select “Force Stop” to force quit Snapchat.
Tap on the ‘i’ icon and select ‘Force Stop’ option.

Now, close the menu and try to open Snapchat. Hopefully after this it will start working perfectly. However, if not, it’s time to try your hand at advanced solutions.

Advanced Solutions: Leave no Stone Unturned in Troubleshooting

Solution 6: Check Snapchat App Permissions

Needless to mention, Snapchat, like all other apps on your phone, requires Camera, Photos, Location, Contacts, and Microphone permissions to function as expected. So, if you’ve denied such permissions especially with Camera and Location, then you’re likely to have a bad experience with the app.

So, let’s see how you can enable relevant app permissions on Android and iPhone with these steps:

  • Step 1: Firstly, long-tap on the “Snapchat app icon.”
  • Step 2: Then, select the “i” button to open the Snapchat app info menu.
  • Step 3: After that, navigate to the “Permissions menu.”
  • Step 4: There, what you’ve to do is check for “Denied Permissions.”
  • Step 5: Thereafter, select “Required permission for Snapchat.”
  • Step 6: Lastly, tap on the “Radio” button beside the “Allow only while using the app” option.
Select the radio button beside ‘Allow only while using the app’ option.

Snapchat users who have iPhone need to follow these steps to check permission of Snapchat app:

  • Step 1: Open the “Settings menu” on your iPhone.
  • Step 2: Inside settings, scroll to “Snapchat.”
  • Step 3: Then, tap on “Location.”
  • Step 4: After that, select “While Using the App” from the following menu. Not only that, you should also enable the “Precise Location” toggle if you frequently use Snap Map.
  • Step 5: Now, go back to the Snapchat menu and enable “Microphone, Camera, and Mobile Data permissions.” Also, you’ll have to do the same for all required Snapchat permissions.

Once you’re done, try to open the Snapchat app again to see if that helps you fix the issue or not!

Solution 7: Clear Your Snapchat Cache

While mobile apps collect cache in the background to improve loading times and perform frequent tasks faster, sometimes corrupted cache data can cause issues in apps. Same goes with the Snapchat app as well. Hence, it is suggested to clear the Snapchat app cache to make sure that it works smoothly.

  • Step 1: On your respective Android phone, open the “Snapchat app info menu”.
  • Step 2: Then, navigate to the “Storage” section.
  • Step 3: There, you’ve to select the “Clear Cache” option from the following menu.
From Snapchat’s storage menu, tap on the ‘Clear Cache’ option.

The process to clear the Snapchat cache for iPhone is different. So, OS users can follow the steps given below to clear Snapchat cache:

  • Step 1: Open “Snapchat” on your iPhone.
  • Step 2: Then, select your “Profile Picture” in the top left corner.
  • Step 3: After that, go to “Snapchat Settings” by tapping on the “Gear-icon.”
  • Step 4: Inside Snapchat settings, you’ve to scroll to “Account Actions.”
  • Step 5: There, you just have to select the “Clear Cache” option and confirm your decision.
From Snapchat app settings, tap on the ‘Clear Cache’ option.

Solution 8: Open Supported Links in Snapchat

For those who don’t know, Snapchat allows users to share their profile links with others. So, instead of opening Snapchat links in the browser, you can launch them directly in the native app to fix and avoid any errors.

  • Step 1: Open Snapchat and launch the “Snapchat app info menu”.
  • Step 2: Inside it, navigate to “Set as default menu.”
Tap on ‘Set as default’ option.
  • Step 3: There, all what you’ve to do is enable the “Open supported links” toggle.
Enable the ‘Open Supported Links’ toggle.

Solution 9: Logout of Snapchat and Sign In Again

Whenever Snapchat is misbehaving on your phone, you can temporarily sign out from your account and log in again with the same account credentials.

That being said, you could log out and log back into your account on your Android or iOS device, with these steps:

Point to Consider: This will help you to re-sync all your snap-conversations with the server and may fix the problem.

  • Step 1: Open “Snapchat.”
  • Step 2: Tap on your “Bitmoji or the circular Profile Picture icon” from the top left corner. As you do so, you’ll be redirected to your Snapchat Profile page.
  • Step 3: Now, from the profile menu, you’ve to select the “Settings gear-icon” located in the top right corner.
  • Step 4: Once you’re done, scroll down and select “Log Out” from the “Account Actions” menu.
  • Step 5: Following that, tap on “Logout” again in the pop-up prompt to confirm your action.
Tap on ‘Log Out’ option & confirm your action in the pop-up.
  • Step 6: When you get successfully logged out of your account, you’ll be redirected onto the “Snapchat app login page” and there, you need to enter your account’s “Login-credentials” to re-login.

Solution 10: Clear Your Snapchat Conversations

If you have trouble accessing specific messages or conversation on Snapchat, you can clear the conversation and start a new chat.

  • Step 1: Open “Snapchat Settings”.
  • Step 2: Inside Snapchat settings, scroll down to the “Clear Conversation” menu. There, you will see all the Snapchat conversations.
  • Step 3: On the same, tap the “X” mark beside a conversation that you want to clear.
  • Step 4: After that, simply tap on the “Clear” button.
Tap on the ‘Clear’ button to clear a Snapchat conversation.

If you’ve cleared your conversation and Snaps still aren’t working, then your best bet would be to delete and re-add your friends. Here’s how you can do so:

  • Step 1: Open your “Snapchat Profile.”
  • Step 2: There, tap on “My Friends” to expand this section.
  • Step 3: Then, select the “Manage Friendship” option.
  • Step 4: After that, tap on “Remove Friend.”
From the Manage Friendship section, tap on the ‘Remove Friend’ option.
  • Step 5: In the end, just hit the “Remove” button.

Doing this though, deletes all your snaps sent and received with that friend you’ve re-added, but it’s likely to fix the problem.

Solution 11: Update the Snapchat app

Since Snapchat regularly releases new app updates and new features to fix bugs, it’s possible that your Snapchat app is out of date and therefore causing you trouble. However, no need to worry you can check the available updates to fix this. To do so:

  • Step 1: Open “Google Play Store” or “App Store” on your phone.
  • Step 2: Then, type “Snapchat” in the search bar.
  • Step 3: After that, go to the “App info page.”
  • Step 4: Now, see if there is an “App update” pending. If so, tap on the “Update” button to download the update.
Tap on the ‘Update’ button to download the Snapchat app update.

In addition, you can also try reinstalling the app if updating the app didn’t work.

Conclusion 

No wonder, Snapchat is one of the most popular social-media sharing apps, whose service users use to share Snaps (i.e., photos, videos and messages) in friend groups and one-to-one.

But, despite Snapchat’s iPhone and Android mobile apps being highly polished and feature-rich, they don’t always work as expected. That’s when this handy guide came to rescue. With the 11 solutions discussed here, any Snapchat user can get rid of the ‘Snapchat not working’ issue and make the app functional again in no-real time.  However, if none of these solutions help you fix the problem, you can contact Snapchat directly by clicking on this “Snapchat Support” link.