Kik Video Chat not working? Here’s what to do

As one of the best free messaging apps for Android or iOS, Kik is commonly used for chatting with friends. You have the ability to chat via simple text messages, send your own GIFs, and also make video calls with your friends and family too.

There are also ways you can make friends via Kik, as you can find and join public group chats; via normal messaging or by video messaging instead. Kik’s video chat feature is one of the newer features, and there may be times when it stops working. Here’s what to do if that happens to you.

Kik Video Chat not working? Here’s why

There are a few main reasons why you may find your Kik’s video chat stops working when you’re using it; is can usually be put down to either your internet connection, or the app and data on your device. We’re going to run through the most common methods of getting Kik working again.

Internet Problems

Like many of the other apps on your device, you’ll need connection to the internet to message or video call with other people. This can be either via your home Wi-Fi network, or using the mobile data on your device instead.

You can double check whether the internet is working on your device by trying to use another app that requires the internet, like Netflix or another messaging app. If that doesn’t work as well as Kik’s video chat, then it’s likely to be an issue with your internet connection.

the first thing you can try doing to resolve this is to disconnect your device from the internet, and then reconnect it. If this doesn’t do the trick, then you can turn your wireless router off and on again to reset it too.

If you’ve done this and the issue stays the same, then it could be that your broadband company has stopped working properly in your area – this is normal and can happen from time to time. You can use something like https://downdetector.co.uk/ to see whether your broadband company is having issues or not.

outage-reports

It will usually be a few hours or maybe a day before the internet comes back online and starts working again – you’ll just have to wait it out.

Update App

As well as your internet connection, the video chat feature in Kik may also have stopped working because of an issue with your device. This could be that the app itself is outdated, and needs to be updated for it to start working again.

For Apple users

You can start by going into the app store and clicking onto your profile picture, and then pressing the purchased option in there. You’ll then get a list of all of the different apps that you’ve downloaded onto your device – if you’ve already downloaded the Kik app, then you should see an option here allowing you to update it.

For Android users:

You can do almost the same process for Android as you can with your iOS device. You can do this by clicking through to the Play Store, and then selecting your profile icon. Then, you can select Manage Apps and Devices,, which will give you a list of all the apps on your device.

Here, you can see the Updates Available option which will indicate whether you’ve got any updates to download.

updates-available

Restart App

If you’ve updated the app and it’s not resolved the issue, the next thing you’re going to want to do is restart it – this may get the video feature working again properly.

For iOS users:

Click through to Settings > General > Background App Refresh.

This will give you the ability to see all of the apps that are active in the background on your device whilst you’re not using them. You can then go ahead and find the Kik app, then turn off background activity by selecting the toggle option and flicking the green switch to off.

After you’ve done this, you can go ahead and re-open the app.

For Android users:

Head to Settings > Apps.

Here, you can find the Kik app and select the ‘Force stop’ option, which you should be able to find in the bottom corner of your device.

After you’ve done this, you can re-open the app.

Reinstall App

After you’ve done this, you can uninstall Kik and then re-install it again on your device. Once done, you can start using the app again afterwards.

For iOS users

First, press down on the Kik app on your home screen. After doing this for a few seconds, a list of different options will appear – you can select Remove app and that will uninstall the app from your device.

ios-kik-uninstall-option

After doing this, another set of options should appear for you to choose from. You can select “Delete App” and this will confirm you uninstalling the app from your device.

ios-kik-uninstall-confirmation

Once done, another set of options will come up for you to choose from. You can select the Delete option which will start the installation for you.

ios-kik-uninstall-final

Once this has finished, you can go into the App Store and select the profile picture – click purchased and you can then re-install the app.

reinstall-icon

For Android users

Again, hold the Kik app icon down and the Options should appear, which will have an un-install option that you can select.

android-kik-uninstall

Click ‘ok’ to go ahead with the uninstallation.

android-kik-uninstall-confirmation

After you’ve done this, you can search for Kik and find the install option to re-install the app on your device again.

android-reinstall-kik

Contact Customer Support

As a last resort, you can then try contacting Kik’s customer support to see if they can help you fix the issue.

Go to https://kikhelpcenter.zendesk.com/hc/en-us, and press the option most relevant to you to view help articles. You may find some solutions in there.

kik-help-centre

You can also try and email support@kik.com to contact customer support and give the details of your query.

Conclusion

All in all, there are a couple of different factors that may be stopping video chat from working on your Kik device. This could be down to the internet, so it’s worth resetting this on your device. If your broadband provider is down, then you may just have to wait until they’re back online.

There’s also a good chance that it could be down to the app itself and your device, so it’s worth resetting and making sure the Kik app is fully updated. And if nothing else works, getting in touch with Kik’s customer support may help you to resolve the issue too.

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Author

Jenny

I love reading, writing, drawing, and other creative pursuits. I wish to travel more and do extreme activities, such as bungee-jumping and skydiving. I'm a casual gamer with an affinity for narrative-driven games and unique art styles. I like watching a variety of different media, but I particularly enjoy animations and musicals. My favourite genre, for both books and visual media, is psychological-thriller.

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