> For the complete documentation index, see [llms.txt](https://acoservice.gitbook.io/acoservice-documentation/llms.txt). Markdown versions of documentation pages are available by appending `.md` to page URLs; this page is available as [Markdown](https://acoservice.gitbook.io/acoservice-documentation/troubleshooting/dms-not-arriving.md).
# Members not getting DMs
Why a member gets no checkout alerts, invoices or reminders in Discord, and how to get delivery working again.
A member says they never heard about their checkout, or an invoice, or a payment reminder. Everything else — the site, the feed channel, their tab — looks fine.
Four things have to be true before a DM lands, and they fail in roughly this order of likelihood.
## 1. Was the member matched at all?
A checkout DM only goes to someone the bot could **identify**. The bot reads the `Profile` field on the checkout embed and tries to resolve it to one of your customers. If it can't, the checkout is still recorded and still posted to the feed — but there is nobody to DM, and nothing is added to any tab.
Go to **Admin → Customers**. The *Unmatched profiles* panel lists every profile string from the last seven days that didn't resolve, with a hit count. If the member's profile is in that list, this is your cause, not their DM settings. Fix it there — see [Wrong member charged](/acoservice-documentation/troubleshooting/wrong-member-charged.md) for how identifiers work.
Invoices and payment reminders are different: they are addressed to a Discord ID that is already on the tab, so they don't depend on matching.
## 2. Has the member switched the notification off?
Members control their own DMs at **Settings → Discord notifications** on the site.
Four toggles — a master switch and three categories below it — plus a Send test DM button that bypasses every preference.
| Toggle | What it covers |
| ----------------- | ----------------------------------------------------------- |
| Master switch | Every DM from the bot. Off here means nothing else matters. |
| Checkout alerts | Successful, declined, cancelled and review-hold checkouts. |
| Invoice alerts | Being billed and needing to pay. |
| Payment reminders | Reminders before and after a tab's due date. |
When the master switch is off the other three grey out. An opted-out member is not a delivery failure — the bot skips the send silently and it never appears as an error anywhere.
Your tenant also has a group-wide switch for reminders specifically: **Admin → Billing → Payment Reminders**. With that off, the bot sends no due-date reminders to anyone, whatever the members' own settings say.
## 3. Will Discord let the bot DM them?
Discord refuses a bot DM with a 403, and it is almost always one of these:
* **The member's DM privacy is closed** for your server. In Discord: right-click the server → *Privacy Settings* → allow direct messages from server members. Discord also has a global default for this in user settings, which the per-server toggle overrides.
* **The member does not share a server with the bot.**
* **The member has blocked the bot.**
{% hint style="warning" %}
Every group on ACO Service runs **its own** Discord bot. A member who is in three different ACO groups is sharing a server with three different bots, and each one can only DM them because of the specific server they share with *that* bot. Leaving your Discord server stops your bot's DMs even though the member can still sign in to your site and see everything there.
{% endhint %}
If your tenant has a Discord application but no **bot token** saved, there is no bot process at all — sign-in works perfectly, the site works perfectly, and not a single DM or slash command ever fires. This is the single most common onboarding failure. Your platform operator can confirm it on the tenant's setup-status checklist, where the row reads *"No bot token — sign-in will work but no slash commands will"*. See [Your Discord application](/acoservice-documentation/setting-up-your-tenant/discord-application.md).
## 4. Prove it with a test DM
On **Settings**, the **Send test DM** button sends a one-line message that **ignores every preference toggle**. That makes it a clean test of the Discord side alone:
* Test DM arrives → Discord and the bot are fine. The problem is a preference (step 2) or matching (step 1).
* Test DM fails → the toast shows Discord's own reason. That is a privacy or shared-server problem (step 3).
Every send attempt is logged, so members also get self-service feedback without asking you:
* **Settings** shows a red banner naming the most recent failed DM type, Discord's error text and when it happened.
* **Billing** shows *"Your last invoice DM didn't reach you."* with a **Resend** button. The resend bypasses preferences, but it sends a short pointer back to the dashboard rather than re-rendering the original invoice embed.
## What an admin can do
**Admin → Tabs**, right-click a member's row → **Re-send today's notifications**. This rebuilds one consolidated DM from the tab entries the checkout feed added for them in the last 24 hours, marked `[Resent]`. It does not replay invoices or reminders.
Do it after the member has actually fixed their privacy settings, not before — a resend into closed DMs fails exactly the same way.
{% hint style="info" %}
**A failed DM never voids the money.** When an invoice is created, the tab entries are marked `invoiced` and the invoice is saved *before* the DM is attempted. If the DM bounces, the member is still billed and can pay from the site's Billing page — they just weren't told. Check the [Billing and invoices](/acoservice-documentation/for-tenant-admins/billing.md) page for anyone who looks like they never responded to an invoice.
{% endhint %}
## Related
* [Settings and notifications](/acoservice-documentation/for-members/settings.md) — the member-facing view of these toggles.
* [Notifications and DMs](/acoservice-documentation/discord-integration/notifications.md) — every DM the bot sends and when.
* [Feed not catching checkouts](/acoservice-documentation/troubleshooting/feed-not-catching.md) — if nothing is reaching the feed either, start there.
* [The bot is offline or missing](/acoservice-documentation/troubleshooting/bot-unresponsive.md).
---
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