Instagram Sandbox User invites never received

Question

Our simple company app that pulls in tagged posts was Sandboxed as of June 1. I know that we don't need to go through the review process- we're going to leave it in Sandbox.

I'm trying to add Sandbox Users. I have added the username and clicked the Save button. That user never receives an email, and when I log in to the developer dashboard as the invited user, I don't see a pending invite. In fact, even when I use the Sandbox Invites button at the top of the dashboard, it's impossible to get past the Developer Signup form. I don't want to create a new app with this user, I just want to accept an invite from our company account!

I've submitted a ticket with Instagram support and have not received a reply.

Additionally, I don't understand why, when I use the Sandbox Invites button from our company account, I see a message stating:

"You are not a Sandbox user for any client and there are no pending requests."

Obviously the account that created the app is a Sandbox user, and I have confirmed that this account can post new content that is pulled in to our feed.

Answer 1

Login here https://www.instagram.com/developer/clients/sandbox_invites/ and click Accept.

The invite acceptance isn't by email. It's done via the API.

Answer 2

Instagram has not replied to any of my help requests. For lack of other options, I went ahead and registered my personal account (the invited user) as a Developer. Magically, this allowed me to see the invitation using the Sandbox Invites button. Fill out this silly form to register as a Developer:

https://www.instagram.com/developer/register/

While this partially answers my question (it seems very strange that I never received an email as part of the invitation process), the fact that a user must register as a Developer is pointless and, worse, undocumented.

The documentation available here says nothing about the requirements for becoming a Sandbox User - other than simply accepting the invitation.

https://www.instagram.com/developer/sandbox/

In short, I've spent time over the last week trying to untangle this mess, and I just want to be able to pull in posts that contain a hashtag.

Geez.