How to Fix Instagram Stories Not Showing Up

Are Instagram stories not showing up on your feed and do you want to fix it?

Your stories timeline will be completely blank if the stories of Instagram are not displayed.

You will not be able to see the stories of anyone else and only your profile picture with “+” icon will be shown to you.

Previously, there is a chance that Instagram stories were working fine, but when you open the Instagram application, you will not see them now.

It is irritating when they are not showing up and you cannot keep yourself up with the stories of people that you are following.

So why is this happening? In this post, I will tell you why are Instagram stories not showing, and how to fix them.

Why can’t I see Instagram stories?

You can’t see Instagram stories because you’ve used a sticker in one of your stories or you have changed your date and time recently.

You will not be able to see stories on IG if you changed your date and time recently.

It is happening due to an incorrect date and time on the app of Instagram, and will stop the stories from showing up.

In some cases, Instagram may be down, so you need to ensure if Instagram is down first before you try to fix the issue.

Secondly, if a music button is used by you on your story, it may result in a glitch.

The Instagram music sticker is famous for causing errors in the app.

So, if you will use the music sticker in any of your stories, the sticker will cause a glitch and as a result, the stories will not show up on your timeline.

Using other stickers in your stories on Instagram might cause other stories to not show up on your timeline too.

However, if you used other stickers, it can become the cause of the problem too.

Some Instagram stickers cause bugs to your story timeline, so if you are using them on your story might cause the stories of other people to not show up.

How to fix Instagram stories not showing up

To fix Instagram stories from not showing up, the first step is to set your date and time to automatic or delete your Instagram stories from a desktop if you used an IG sticker in your stories.

If your IG stories are not showing up, it’s either happening because of an incorrect date and time or due to a sticker glitch.

To fix these errors, the first thing is to set your date and time to automatic and remove your Instagram stories from the desktop version.

You will find many generic and ineffective solutions for this on the web.

For instance, a lot of people might guide you to uninstall and reinstall Instagram, clear the cache of the app, but none of it actually works.

But after doing a lot of research, I have found these two solutions that work the best.

There are 2 working methods to fix Instagram stories not showing up:

Method 1. Set your date and time to automatic

The first way to fix Instagram stories from not showing up is by setting your date and time to automatic.

If you’ve recently changed your date and time, the date and time may not be in sync with Instagram.

Have you recently changed the date and time on your phone? If yes, you may have not changed it back.

If the date and time are incorrect, it will stop IG stories from showing up on your timeline on Instagram.

To get stories to show up on Instagram again, the best solution is to set your date and time back to automatic.

In addition, you may have forgotten to change your date and time back to automatic.

The most common reason why IG stories are not showing up is due to an incorrect date and time.

If you want your stories to show up on your timeline again, your task is to set your date and time to automatic.

Otherwise, you will not see other people’s stories on your feed.

Here’s a step by step guide on how you can set your date and time to automatic on an iPhone:

1. Firstly, visit your phone’s settings.
2. Tap on “General”.
3. Tap on “Date & Time”.
4. Now, turn on the switch for, “Set Automatically” to set your date and time automatically.
5. After doing that, force close Instagram’s app in your background.
6. Now, go to Instagram, and stories should be back on your timeline.

Here’s a step by step guide on how you can set your date and time to automatic on an Android device:

1. Firstly, visit your phone’s settings.
2. Tap on “Date & Time”.
3. Tap on “Automatic” to set your date and time automatically.
4. Now, force close the Instagram’s app in your background.
5. Lastly, go to Instagram, and stories should be back on your timeline.

After setting your date and time settings to automatic, stories should return on your timeline.

After setting your date and time settings to automatic, don’t forget to force close the app before you open it again.

But when you set your date and time to automatic, you must force close the Instagram app before you open it again.

Otherwise, your stories won’t show up on Instagram.

If you want to force close Instagram on an iPhone X or later, swipe up and pause, find Instagram, after that swipe up to close it.

To force close Instagram on an older iPhone, double-tap on your home button, locate Instagram, then swipe up to close it.

Alternatively, if you’re using an Android, go to your settings, tap on “Application manager”, tap on Instagram, then tap on “Force stop”.

As a result, it will re-sync the date and time on your android with Instagram.

Method 2. Delete your Instagram stories from a desktop

The second method to fix Instagram stories from not showing up is to use the desktop version to delete all your Instagram stories.

If you used to use a music sticker or any other sticker in one of your stories, removing it from a desktop will cause stories to show on your feed again.

If you have used a music sticker or any other sticker in one of your stories, it may cause a glitch and IG stories will not be shown.

To fix it, your task is to delete your Instagram stories from a desktop via Instagram Web.

Here’s a step by step guide on how you can delete your Instagram stories from a desktop:

1. Firstly, visit Instagram on your desktop.
2. Sign in to your account.
3. Go to your profile.
4. Tap on your story on your profile picture.
5. Now, tap on the “triple-dots” icon at the top-right corner.
6. Select “Delete” to delete your Instagram story.
7. Now, repeat the process on all of your stories to delete them all.

Instagram stickers (especially the music sticker) are known to cause problems on Instagram.

If you used a music sticker on one of your stories, it may prevent the stories of other people from showing up on your timeline.

Therefore, deleting your stories from IG via Instagram web using a desktop will fix stories from not showing up.

Similarly, as per the first solution, make sure to force close the Instagram app and then open it again.

Otherwise, stories may unable to show up.

How to prevent Instagram stories from not showing up

Now that you have fixed the error, you need to take some measures to prevent the error from happening again.

Whenever you get an error on Instagram, it can be really hard to fix it.

Instagram support is unreachable, so the best way is to prevent these errors from happening again.

The main reason is that Instagram support is unreachable.

If you ever tried to contact them before from the app, you should know that you will not get a reply from them.

Therefore, you should always prevent errors before they can occur again on Instagram.

Here are a couple of ways that you can use to prevent it from happening again.

Measure 1. Don’t change your date and time

The first measure you need to take is to not change the date and time from your phone’s settings.

When you change your date and time from your phone, it can cause errors in some apps.

An incorrect date and time may result in issues on the Instagram app.

Whenever you change your date and time, set it back to automatic.

The main cause of certain issues in some apps is an incorrect date and time.

On Instagram, changing your date and time will prevent stories from showing on the timeline.

The reason for this issue is that Instagram is not synced with your date and time.

In order to avoid Instagram stories from not showing up, you have to ensure that your date and time settings are set to automatic.

In any case, if you have changed your date and time due to some reason, don’t forget to change it back to automatic.

Measure 2. Try not to use Instagram stickers

The second thing you should do is to do not use Instagram stickers in your stories.

Certain Instagram stickers might cause problems on the app.

In order to avoid stories from not showing up on your feed, try not to use Instagram stickers while posting a new story.

Some Instagram stickers might result in glitches in the app.

For example, if you are using a music sticker in one of your stories might prevent other people’s stories from showing up.

To avoid this, the best measure is to try not to use any stickers whenever you’re posting a story.

Final Words

In this post, you’ve successfully learned how to fix Instagram stories from not showing up.

To recap, here are a couple of ways you can use to fix it:

1. Set your date and time to automatic.
2. Delete your Instagram stories via desktop version.

The two main reasons for the issue are an incorrect date and time, and an Instagram sticker.

Setting your date and time to automatic and removing stories that have a music sticker will resolve it.

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