How to fix Discord ‘Messages Failed to Load’ error

As a live messaging service, Discord is prone to experiencing all kinds of issues, errors, and outages, typically involving errors for connecting to servers or loading new content. 

One such error can see players being notified that Discord “Messages Failed to Load,” which can render the entire social platform unusable for extended periods of time.

Most of the time, this means the platform as a whole is experiencing some form of larger network problems or server issues, but users could also be impacted on an individual basis. Overall, the “Messages Failed to Load” error will cause any chat to be completely empty and keep you from sending any new messages. 

There are several ways you can attempt to fix the error on your own if Discord’s servers aren’t actually at fault, starting with restarting the program. 

Restart Discord

If you’re using the desktop app for Discord, simply closing the program completely may be enough to fix the issue. 

This can be done easily through the Task Manager on Windows or Activity Monitor on Mac. Just make sure the program is completely closed before you move on. Otherwise, nothing will be solved and you’ll just be opening the same instance of Discord you just exited. 

If the messages still aren’t loading when you restart the program, you’ll likely need to try something else. 

Check for updates

Discord is well known for updating its app a lot. But if you somehow missed an update or disabled the auto-update feature, you may be running outdated software. 

To check for an update, simply force a restart for the program or re-download Discord. This will install the newest version of the app and may resolve the issue. 

Test other platforms

Since Discord is available on mobile and PC, you can swap over to another version of the program to see if it’s working as intended. 

If any of the mobile, desktop, or browser versions of Discord are working while another isn’t, it could be an issue with a specific platform. And if that’s the case, you’ll just need to wait until Discord resolves the issue. 

If the problem does end up being on Discord’s end, you can check the platform’s dedicated page to list all server outages and errors that the developers are working on fixing as they’re being worked on. The status page will display all of the ongoing errors under the “Server Outages and Increased API Errors” tab, with previous reports and fixes at the bottom of the page.