5 Quick Ways to Fix the Instagram Stories Not Showing

Are you experiencing issues with Instagram Stories Not Showing and looking for ways to resolve them? This step-by-step guide will help you fix it instantly.

If you are looking for a solution to why you can’t see someone’s Instagram Story on your feed and why your followers can’t see yours, then this post is for you.

Whether you can’t see someone’s Instagram Story on your feed, or Stories are not loading, or your followers say your Story isn’t appearing for them, this issue is more common than you think. It usually happens due to app glitches, outdated versions, cache errors, account restrictions, or temporary Instagram outages.

In this guide, you’ll learn 5 proven fixes you can use to fix why Instagram Stories are not showing to get Stories appearing normally again.

Instagram Stories Not Loading: Why Can’t I See Instagram Stories

Are you struggling with Instagram Stories not showing or loading? Or are Instagram Stories not showing up for you or your followers?

Then you are alone. I came across a lot of such queries that made me write this guide and draft a few solutions so that you can quickly fix your issue of Instagram Stories Not Showing.

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Most of the people often have the following queries regarding their Instagram stories:

1. Why can’t I see someone’s story on Instagram?
2. Why are my Instagram stories not loading?
3. Why can’t I see stories on Instagram?
4. Instagram stories haven’t shown since an update on my iPhone
5. Why is Instagram not showing my story to my followers?

In the following section, I will cover quick and easy ways to fix your Instagram Stories are not showing or loading properly. So, let’s begin.

Recommended Reading => How to Post on Instagram From Your PC – Beginner’s Guide

How to Fix Instagram Stories Not Showing Issue

If you are also facing the problem of ‘Instagram not showing stories’, we have got solutions for you! You can simply restart your phone, or check for system or app updates, to check if the problem lies there. If it still doesn’t work, just have a look at the solutions based on different problems listed here-

1) If your Instagram stories are taking too long to load:

Since Instagram runs online only, slow internet may cause the Instagram stories to load slowly. So, try fixing your internet, or restart your phone to see a difference.

Suggested Reading => How to view Instagram Stories without an account

2) Instagram not showing stories:

If you have a good internet connection and you still face the problem of Instagram stories not loading, then check whether or not Instagram has access to your mobile data. Additionally, disabling the data saver will improve your internet speed.

3) If you are unable to see a specific person’s story:

You can see any person’s stories on Instagram if his account is public. But in case you want to see someone’s stories whose account is private, you must FOLLOW their account first. If you are following the person and still can not see their stories, then check if you have muted their account in the past, intentionally or accidentally.

If you want to unmute an account on Instagram, follow these steps:

• Go to your profile on Instagram and click on the Menu icon located in the upper right corner of the page.

• Now scroll down to find the option ‘Muted Accounts’.

• From here, you will see the accounts you have muted. Just click on the ‘Unmute’ button, to restart watching their stories.

If you still can not see the stories of a specific person, then there are several other possibilities:

1. The person has deleted their Instagram account or deactivated it temporarily.
2. They may have blocked you.
3. They may be showing their stories to a specific group of people only; which makes their stories hidden from you, and there is no way to find out if someone is hiding their stories from you.

4) If Instagram stories are not showing up since you have updated your iPhone or Android:

If this is the case, you can try restarting your phone, and checking your internet. If the problem persists, you can uninstall Instagram and then reinstall it, or report the problem if nothing works.

5) If nothing works:

When you have tried everything and still can’t see your Insta stories and feeds, then the Instagram server may be down. In this case, your friends must also be facing the same problem, so ask them about it. You can also get information regarding such issues on Twitter (X platform), Facebook or Google.

Further Reading => => Guide to Instagram Story Sizes & Dimensions

To check the status of the Instagram server, you can use ‘Downdetector’. Just go to your browser and open the Downdetector website. Then click on the Instagram icon, and the site will give you a report about the Instagram server status.

Below are a few other quick methods you can use to fix the Instagram Stories Not Showing

• Force stop Instagram, then restart it
• Clear the app cache.
• Many applications do not work if the date and time on a mobile are not correct. So check this also.
• Log out and then log in.
• Restart/update your phone.
• Check whether you have the latest version of the app.

Contact Instagram support if the issue persists: If your issues do not get solved even after trying everything, you can access Instagram support. Follow these steps for reporting a problem on Instagram:

1. Go to your Instagram profile.
2. Click on the menu icon.
3. Scroll down to find the option ‘Help’ and click on it.
4. Now you will see the option to report a problem. Follow the instructions and state the issue you are facing.

Watch this YouTube video to get a quick guide if you cannot see Instagram story views.

Further Reading => Guide to Instagram Story Sizes & Dimensions

FAQs on Instagram Not Showing Stories

You may find an answer to your queries from these FAQs.

Recommended Reading => Know the BEST Time to Post on Instagram and Get More Likes

Conclusion

This article gives solutions to several issues related to Instagram stories. If you have a complaint stating ‘Why can’t I see Instagram stories on iPhone?’, or ‘Instagram stories not showing up on top’, ‘Why is an Instagram story not showing’, ‘Why can’t I see story preview on Instagram?’ etc., then there would most probably be one of the following reasons:

• You can only watch someone’s story when you follow their account. To follow someone’s account, you’ll have to send a follow request. Once they accept it, then only you will be able to see their stories in the future. And if their account is public, then you can instantly start following them, by tapping on the Follow button, there is no need to get approval for the same.
• There is a possibility that you are following only a few people and none of them has posted a story in a while.
• Your Instagram application is not updated to the latest version.
• Your mobile phone needs a software update.
• The data and time on your phone are not correct.
• Your internet connection may have some issues.
• Instagram may have some technical issues going on.
• If you are not seeing story previews (suggested reels) on Instagram, you might just need to update the app. Plus, check your internet connection.

Instagram is quite an easy-to-use platform. Changing any setting on Instagram becomes quite effortless with the help of the option they provide for finding a setting. You can just go to your profile, then click on the Menu icon and type in the name of the setting you want to change in the ‘ Search’ bar, instead of scrolling through the long list of options.

For example, you want to know about the ‘Device Permissions’ given to the app. You can type in ‘Device Permissions’ in the Search bar and you will be directed to your desired setting.

Research process

Total time taken to research and publish this post: 40 hours (Approx)

This article is written by going through a structured research methodology that includes reviewing Instagram’s official help center and recent platform updates, analyzing common user-reported issues across forums and social media, and testing the problem across different devices, apps, and network conditions.

All solutions mentioned in this post were validated through hands-on troubleshooting to ensure accuracy and relevance.