ManyChat automations firing in the middle of real conversations?

Hello ​@m1cola , I’ve been there too 🙃 In my experience, this usually happens because an automation somewhere in the system is being triggered at the wrong moment.

A few common things to check:

Live Chat pause: replying in Live Chat pauses automations for 30 minutes, but once that pause ends, the contact may start receiving messages again from the flow they were originally in.

Keyword triggers: short keywords can be triggered accidentally. It’s also worth checking that you’re not using the same keyword in different flows, as that can create conflicts.

Channel auto-replies: for example, WhatsApp Business app auto-replies can sometimes look like they’re coming from ManyChat.

Default Reply: in my experience, it’s often better to keep this paused while troubleshooting. The Default Reply is triggered when a contact sends something your bot does not recognize, so it can sometimes interfere with real conversations.

If one specific flow keeps failing even after you update it, I’d recommend deleting it and recreating it by copying the structure into a new flow. That can help remove any older broken logic or setup issues.

A quick fix that often helps is adding a Pause all automations step in the flow most likely to interrupt real conversations, and setting it for a longer time if needed.

Lastly, I’d recommend doing a general audit of your bot and running tests to replicate what caused the unwanted automations. You can also share the flows with Support, or post them here in the community and we’ll try to help.

Hope this helps!

Catalina Rendon

Yeah, I’d simplify things for now too.

If old messages are jumping into live conversations, it usually means there’s still some trigger, rule, keyword, or fallback automation active somewhere, even if the main funnel looks turned off.

A few things I’d check:

• old keywords that are still live

• default reply automations

• story mention/reply triggers

• hidden entry points inside older flows

• rules that still apply tags or start automations

Sometimes the flow is off, but another trigger connected to it is still active.

If it’s happening in real client chats, I’d definitely pause anything non-essential and rebuild from one clean trigger first. That usually makes it much easier to find what’s firing.

Thanks for your help. I'll look at all these things, but I didn't change anything for a while and it just started happening.