How to fix Twitch emotes not showing

Communication is a massive part of human interaction, and even if it seems odd at first, Twitch emotes are absolutely a form of communication. So when emotes aren’t properly displaying on Twitch, it becomes difficult to communicate or at least understand the underlying sentiment of chat as a whole. Here are the quick fixes to try if Twitch emotes aren’t displaying for you.

Related: What to do when your Twitch following list is gone

Twitch emotes not showing error, explained and fixes

There are multiple ways to try to fix this: here are quick fixes in the order they should be completed.

Verify you can chat

Sometimes, broadcasters on Twitch may opt to change the channel chat to subscriber-only, or you may have been outright banned. If you have been banned, you’ll be able to tell from the chat log — the message is pretty hard to miss. It’s similar to time-out messages and subscriber-only chat mode.

Refresh Twitch

The quickest fix for Twitch emotes not showing is to refresh, but instead of using F5 to refresh the page, use Ctrl + F5 simultaneously. This not only refreshes the page but also clears the cache of the page and forces it to reload. In most cases, this should be enough to fix the issue.

Relog into Twitch

If forcing a cache redownload isn’t enough, try fully logging out of Twitch by clicking your username icon in the top right and then selecting ‘Log Out.’ Once you’ve logged out, log back in and reattempt to use and view the emotes.

Ensure your adblocker isn’t blocking chat functions

Twitch has recently taken the fight against Twitch ad blockers, and the cat & mouse between Amazon and ad blockers can easily take a few casualties. Try temporarily turning off your ad blocker to see if that makes the emotes viewable — if so, your ad blocker has gotten a bit overzealous.

Alternative emotes in Twitch

While many emotes are based in Twitch and tend to be granted to users if they’ve subscribed to a certain channel, there are also external emotes that can be added to Twitch, should a broadcaster elect to include them. To use these alternative emotes, users will need to install 7TV and BetterTTV. Once installed, there are new menu functions, and chat emotes that will be available, but most importantly, a wide bevy of emotes will now be viewable by you.