The safety net: why a bot stopped

Every bot has a safety net watching over it. It exists for the times a conversation goes wrong: the bot loops, or buries someone under a burst of messages. That is rare, but the consequences are unpleasant — a follower gets a dozen identical messages, and the platform may treat it as spam. The safety net stops this itself, before your followers notice.

What the safety net does

It slows a conversation down. If a bot writes to one user too often, the chat is paused: messages go out one at a time, at an even pace, instead of all at once. A line appears in the chat in “Chats”: “This looks like a loop: the bot is pausing this conversation.” One line per pause, not one per message.

It stops a run that went in circles. If a conversation loops and the bot keeps walking through steps endlessly, the safety net stops that run. The bot’s other conversations keep working.

It turns the bot off if this keeps happening. When more than half of a bot’s runs in a day go that way — or more than half of its messages go out in bursts — the bot is switched off. That is a last resort: it means this is not a one-off glitch.

Which notifications you get

Notifications reach you wherever you set them up in “Settings” → “Notifications”: push, Telegram bot or email.

The first time it happens on a given day — a warning; the bot keeps working:

• “A bot run was stopped” — “Your bot ‘…’ took more steps in a single run than allowed, so we stopped that run. You can see the details in your account. If this happens in more than half of its runs, we will turn the bot off.”
• “Your bot is messaging too fast” — “Your bot ‘…’ sent several messages in a row to one user, so we paused that conversation for a few minutes.”

Later occurrences the same day do not write to you — you can see them in your account.

If the bot is switched off — a second message:

• “Your bot was turned off” — “Your bot ‘…’ went in circles in more than half of its runs, so we turned it off. You can edit its steps and start it again.”
• “Your bot was turned off” — “Your bot ‘…’ sent more than half of its messages in bursts, so we turned it off.”

Only you switch the bot back on: we will not turn somebody else’s bot on ourselves.

What to do

1. Open the bot and look at its settings. Most often the cause is the trigger: the bot fires on its own messages, or the condition is too wide (“Any message”).
2. Look at the chat in “Chats” — you can see exactly what the bot sent and where it started going in circles.
3. Fix it and switch it back on: the bot card → “⋯” → “Turn on”.
4. If it is not clear what went wrong, write to us. We see every such event too — the first thing we check is whether the cause is on our side.

A different kind of stop: Instagram’s closed window

Separately from the safety net, a bot may stay silent because of a platform rule. Instagram only allows replies within 24 hours of the user’s message; once that time has passed the bot does not send the message, and a line with the reason appears in the chat — one per conversation, not one per attempt.

That is not a fault and not your mistake: see Instagram limits.

Common questions

Can I switch the safety net off? No. It protects your accounts: platforms throttle burst sending and, at worst, block the account.

How long does the pause in a conversation last? Only minutes: the bot delivers what has piled up one message at a time and then carries on as usual.

My bot was turned off at night — why did I learn about it in the morning? The notification is sent immediately, but quiet hours are respected: at night it does not wake you with a sound. You can change this in “Settings” → “Notifications”.