In the wonderful world of social media platforms, there is always something that we might not know about it. Applications like Snapchat are evolving every day by adding new features, upgrading their interface, or even dumping the features that might not be useful anymore.
Pending messages are not something new though. It’s a type of status that you may have come across when visiting one of these locations:
- On chat page under the person’s name
- On direct message page in form of notice
Now let us see when and why the pending status appears and if there is any workaround for it.
What does it mean when it says pending on Snapchat?
1- Your friend has not accepted your friend request yet.
Most of the time that’s why you encounter the pending status notice. Almost in all social network applications the person you send a friend request to, needs to accept your request before you can send them a DM or view the contents that are only available to friends. Snapchat is no exception. So if have already sent a friendship request to someone on Snapchat you will have to wait for them to accept the friendship request.
2- The other user has unfriended you, blocked you, or quit Snapchat
Snapchat won’t notify it’s users when someone blocks or unfriends them. But sending message behavior is exactly like when you are awaiting friendship approval. You will see a grey arrow along with a pending message below your friend’s name within the Chat section. Your previous chats are still there and if you head over to your friends list, it says you are still friends. By clicking on your friendship status, a list of options including “remove friend” will pop up, just like before.
But you wouldn’t know whether they have blocked you, removed you, or just deleted their account and quit Snapchat. There is a trick though to find out if you were blocked or your friend deleted his or her account.
Head to the “My Friends” section. If your friend is still there but you no longer can see their Snap Score then they have probably removed you from their friend list but if you can’t find them there anymore that means they have blocked you or removed their Snapchat account entirely.
3- Poor Internet connection
Snapchat can act weird on slow and unstable Internet connections. Delivered messages may show as pending and opened chats may appear as just delivered. To avoid this situation make sure you have a reliable and stable connection. To make sure that’s not the case, switch to mobile data temporarily and turn off any pivot connection like VPNs. As the last step close and launch Snapchat again and check if the problem has been resolved.
4- The Snapchat app has a bug
Snapchat is a reliable, stable, and secure application, but bugs are inevitable. None of the major software companies ever claim their applications are 100% bug-free. So it’s necessary to always keep your applications up to date.
By default Snapchat automatically receives the latest updates, so you don’t have to worry about keeping your app updated. But if you believe Snapchat has not received the latest update, depending on your phone, you need to follow one of these steps:
- iPhone: Tap App Store > profile icon and tap Update next to Snapchat
- Android: Go to the Play Store and select Menu > My apps & games. From the Updates tab, find Snapchat and tap Update.