Instagram is one of the most popular photo and video-sharing platforms around the world. It is also one of the biggest social media at the time, with around 1.628 billion people using it actively as of April 2023. Instagram’s popularity can be credited to the fact that the platform is incredibly user-friendly and versatile. Once you start using this platform, it becomes highly addictive thanks to its various features and attributes.
People use it to share almost everything about their lives in the form of photos and videos. They include captions to their posts and stories to share their thoughts and feelings. Posts are essentially permanent on any user’s feed, whereas stories are temporary and disappear automatically after a period of 24 hours.
People use Instagram to converse with one another using direct messages and make audio and video calls. One can also go live on the platform and talk to their friends and followers in real-time.
Users comment on each other’s posts and engage with one another’s content. Stories are also a great way to know the how-abouts of the people you are connected with on the platform.
Users can reply to each other’s stories to initiate conversations. However, if you have been trying to reply to someone’s Instagram story and constantly failing to do so, you might wonder if something’s wrong.
A few of our Instagram-using readers have come up to us wondering what could be the possible reasons for being unable to reply to someone’s stories on the platform.
If you are facing this issue as well, you are just at the right place. In this blog, we are going to explore the possible reasons why you can’t reply to someone’s Instagram stories and how you can fix them.
Let’s get started!
Why Can’t I Reply to Someone’s Story on Instagram?
If you have been trying to reply to someone’s story on Instagram and not being able to do so, you need not jump to any serious conclusions. There could be several reasons why you could be facing the issue; it might just as well be a glitch.
In this section, we will explore the possible reasons why one would be unable to reply to someone’s story on Instagram. Let’s begin!
Disabled story replies
Instagram allows users to customize their privacy settings in such a way that they can decide whether or not they want to receive replies to their stories.
It might be possible that the person whose story you are trying to reply to just has their story replies disabled, and it has nothing to do with you.
Allowed replies only from followers
Next, it could be possible that you are not able to reply to a story that somebody else is.
Well, the possible reason for that is that you are not following the person whose story you want to reply to; they might have turned off story replies from people who are not their followers entirely.
If this is the case, you should be able to reply to them once you begin following them on Instagram.
Ad or Suggested for you story
It may be possible that the story you are viewing and want to reply to is just an ad on Instagram or a story suggested for you. There are numerous story ads that Instagram users use to promote their accounts or brand.
The suggested stories are basically recommendations by Instagram based on your recent searches, posts you engage with, and people you currently follow.
Both of these story types cannot be replied to, and hence you could be facing the issue of being unable to reply to them.
Deleted story
Another possibility that you are unable to reply to a story is that it’s recently been deleted. Instagram sometimes takes a few moments to reflect on the viewer’s side when a story is deleted by the creator.
Hence, it’s possible that the story you are viewing is deleted and will disappear in a few moments. Therefore, you are unable to reply to it.
You’ve been blocked or restricted
You were dreading this, weren’t you? Well, let’s face it: this is a possibility, too, why you are unable to send story replies to a user. If you can view the story but cannot reply, it might be possible they blocked or restricted your account while you were viewing the story.
The chances of this timing are highly rare but not impossible. So, you should go to their profile to see if their posts are displaying and if you are able to send them direct messages. If you cannot do either, then you have been blocked or restricted by the user.
Internet problem
Maybe it’s just an internet problem, and there’s nothing wrong otherwise. Sometimes when you are facing a network issue, your story replies might not be delivered to the user. However, once your internet starts working again, they will deliver.
Instagram server down or technical issue
Another possibility is that Instagram’s server is down, which is why you are unable to reply to someone’s story. There could also be technical issues with the platform that are the underlying cause of the glitch– you never know.
If you are sure there are no other possibilities, as mentioned above, you can try waiting a little while to see if the problem resolves itself. And if it’s a server problem or a technical issue, it most definitely will.
To sum it up
That brings us to the end of this blog. Let’s quickly sum up everything we have learned so far today. We began our discussion by talking about how versatile and incredible the platform Instagram is.
We then explored its various features, which brought us to Instagram stories. After that, we discussed how sometimes users are unable to reply to some stories on the platform. We then determined and explored various reasons why one would be unable to reply to someone’s story on Instagram.
With this, we hope we were able to address all your doubts and queries about Instagram stories and the reasons for not being able to reply to some of them. If you have any more questions you would like us to answer, feel free to drop them in the comments below.
We will address them in our upcoming blogs, as always!
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