If one or more of your automations have stopped working, please follow this checklist in order. System-wide issues (like payments) are the most common cause.
How to troubleshoot automations not working?
The automations could be stopped due to many reasons, to understand the true reason why any automation inlcuding welcome series, COD, Cart abandonment, Rating added, Post purchase, Browse abandonment, Winback, are not working, you need to check all the following steps:
1. Detecting Automation Alerts
To identify the reason why any of your automations have stopped working, follow these steps:
Click on the Automations icon.
Click on any of the Deactivated (or Disabled) automations.
Hover your mouse over the Alert (or Warning) icon displayed next to the automation to understand the cause.
2. Check for Payment Issues (Highest Priority)
The Check: Look at the very top of your BusinessChat dashboard. Do you see a Red Banner alerting you to a payment failure?
The Cause: If Meta (WhatsApp) cannot process your payment for conversation charges, it will immediately pause your account.
The Fix:
Pay the outstanding balance in your Facebook Business Manager/WhatsApp settings.
Crucial Step: Once paid, you must send a test message from your BusinessChat dashboard to any number by clicking the Red banner. This "wakes up" the system and reactivates the account.
3. Check E-commerce Integration Status
The Check: Go to your Integrations page, the icon on top of your account avatar at the bottom of your BusinessChat account.
The Cause: Your connection to your store (Shopify, Salla, Zid, etc.) may be broken. This happens if:
The app was uninstalled from the store.
The store's subscription plan has expired.
The app requires updates.
The Fix:
From your BusinessChat account, click on the apps store to check the app status. If the status shows "Disconnected," please Reinstall or Reconnect the app immediately. Finally, refresh your BusinessChat account to see the automations reactivated.
If the app is connected, check the app details from your ecommerce platform to see if an update button exists; if yes, then update the app instead of uninstalling and reinstalling. Finally, refresh your BusinessChat account to see the automations reactivated.
4. The "Hover" Diagnosis (Specific Errors)
The Check: If the steps above are clear, go to the specific Automation page that is not working.
The Cause: A specific rule or setting might be blocking this workflow.
The Fix:
Open the automation page.
Look next to the automation name at the top for a button labeled Stopped.
Hover your mouse cursor over the "Stopped" button.
A tooltip will appear revealing the exact reason (e.g., "Template Rejected," "Trigger Deleted," etc.).
5. Check for Template Issues
The Check: Open the automation workflow and review the specific "Send Message" steps. If there's an alert next to the template name that is the reason.
The Cause: Sometimes an automation stops because the specific message template used has been Rejected or Paused by Meta (due to policy updates or high block rates), even if it was working before.
The Fix:
Create a new template for the automation.
Click to edit the message step.
If the template shows an error, swap it for a different, Approved template.
Save the changes and switch the automation back to Active.
=> If all above checks have no issues, then go to settings fromy our account avatar, click WhatsApp Number, click Sync numbers from the top of the page and see if any changes to the number status appear.
If the Number status is still connected and the quality is green or yellow, then the automations not working could be caused by a bug that needs to be reported to our technical team.
6. Logic & Filter Checks
If the system is "Healthy" but messages still aren't sending, check the specific filters you’ve set for the automation.
Impossible logic can prevent the automation from finding eligible customers.
Action: Click "Edit the Automation" and inspect the Filters.
Check: Did you add product filters for items that are now out of stock? Are there conflicting "And/Or" rules?
Resolution: Remove or broaden filters to see if the flow starts moving again. If the customer cart includes one of the excluded items, for example, they will not receive the automation message.
7. The "3-Sample" Investigation
If everything in previous steps is perfect, we look at the data for specific customers to find the "break" in the chain.
6.1. Gather Data
Collect three specific phone numbers of people who abandoned carts in the last 12 hours and you doubt that they didn't reciev the automation message.
6.2. Investigate in BusinessChat (Conversation View)
Let's assume that the abandoned carts automation is the one not working. Get three samples for customers numbers that you doubt didn't get the automation message. Search for each sample number in the Contacts section, following these steps:
Click the Contacts icon in the BusinessChat account.
Search for the specific phone number.
Click on the user to enter the conversation view.
Scroll through the chat history to locate the cart abandonment message.
Is the Cart Abandonment message visible in the thread?
Analyse the result based on the following scenarios:
Outcome A: No Message Found. The trigger never reached BusinessChat. This usually points back to a Webhook or Integration issue.
Outcome B: Red Exclamation Mark (!). The system tried to send, but Meta blocked it. Hover over the "!" to see the error (e.g., "User blocking business" or "Template Paused", etc). You must identify the specific error code and search for it’s meaning in this article: help.businesschat.io/ar/articles/8368430-أسباب-فشل-إرسال-قوالب-واتساب-وكيفية-حلها
Outcome C: Message Found (Sent/Read). The automation is working. The issue may just be a misunderstanding of the timing or specific user behavior.
=> If the cart message is not found in the conversation, proceed to the last step.
6.3. Analyze the Customer Journey (Automations Execution Logs)
If the message is missing (Outcome A), check the technical logs to identofy the exit reason.
Important: This step uses the specific Automation Log Search tool, which is separate from your general contact list search feature. Its only purpose is to show technical history. It will not redirect you to the customer's conversation or open their profile.
To check the customer journey with automations using the AAutomations Execution Logs, follow these steps:
Click the automations icon from your BusinessChat account
Click Automations Logs
Paste a number from your samples in the search box and click enter.
Check the customer’s journey on your store. See the automations he entered and exited. It might be that because he was part of another recent marketing automation, the Smart sending feature excluded them from the Cart automation.
=> From here, you will be able to see all the automations that the customers entered. If you didn’t find the cart automation listed, regardless of the result, meaning whether he finished the automation or was excluded, then you need to report a bug to the technical team.
You can follow the same steps to check samples for any automation you suspect is not working.