None of my discord.js guildmember events are emitting, my user caches are basically empty, and my functions are timing out?

Question

My code has been working just fine for weeks, but a few events and functions have randomly stopped working!

Firstly, my guildMemberAdd, guildMemberRemove, and guildMemberUpdate events simply stopped doing anything. No errors are appearing, and when I debugged my code, I realized the event wasn't even being emitted when the corresponding action took place.

// const client = new Discord.Client();

client.on('guildMemberAdd', (member) => // not triggering!
 client.channels.cache.get('channel-id').send(`${member.tag} joined!`); // not sending!

Secondly, when trying to get a member from the GuildMemberManager cache, it always returns undefined:

const member = message.guild.members.cache.get(targetID); // undefined

When I then tried to display every member in that guild's member cache, it only showed me and my bot instead of the usual 100+ members.

Then I tried to fetch every member in my guild using GuildMemberManager.fetch():

const members = await message.guild.members.fetch();

But I got this error:

[GUILD_MEMBERS_TIMEOUT]: Members didn't arrive in time.

Again, I'm sure my syntax is correct, as it's been working perfectly for a while, and I haven't updated anything recently that would affect this code.

Answer 1

🤖 Discord is now enforcing privileged intents

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What are intents?

Maintaining a stateful application can be difficult when it comes to the amount of data you're expected to process, especially at scale. Gateway Intents are a system to help you lower that computational burden.

Gateway intents allow you to pick and choose what events you choose to "subscribe" to so that you don't have to use up storage on events you're not using. This feature was introduced by Discord in 2020 and was supported by discord.js in v12.

What are privileged intents?

Some intents are defined as "Privileged" due to the sensitive nature of the data. Those intents are:

• GUILD_PRESENCES
• GUILD_MEMBERS

As of October 27th 2020, these intents have been turned off by default.

Some problems you might be facing because of this

1. GUILD_PRESENCES

   • member and user caches are empty (or very close to it) on startup
   • Guild.memberCount returns count as of ready
   • All events involving Presences do not trigger (presenceUpdate)
   • Some Presence data returns null or undefined
   • All GuildMembers appear to the bot as offline.
   • client.login() times out if you specified the fetchAllMembers option in your ClientOptions

2. GUILD_MEMBERS

   • member and user caches are empty (or very close to it) on startup
   • GuildMemberManager.fetch() and UserManager.fetch() methods time out
   • All events involving GuildMembers do not trigger (guildMemberAdd, guildMemberRemove, guildMemberUpdate, guildMemberSpeaking, and guildMembersChunk)

How do I enable intents?

Through the Discord Developer Portal:

Firstly, you must manually enable the intents from the Discord Developer site. Go to applications, select your app, and find the "bot" tab on the sidebar. Then you can scroll down until you see this:

As shown in the screenshot, your bot will require verification if in more than 75 guilds.

If your bot is verified:

Once your bot is verified, you won't be able to manually flip the intent switches in the Developer Portal. To request whitelisted access to an additional privileged gateway intent for a verified bot, please send our support team a ticket here! Make sure to include your bot's ID, which intents you're requesting, a basic description of your use case for the requested intent, and screenshots or video of that use case in action (or code snippets, if not user facing!).

Through the discord.js module:

Once you have either/both intents checked off, you just have to enable them through discord.js. The discord.js intents guide thoroughly explains how to do this, but I will paraphrase it here.

You don't need to go through these steps if you want every intent. Discord enables all intents (except these two, obviously) by default. As long as you checked off both intents in the Developer Portal, you can stop here if you don't care about blocking any other intents. If you do, just remember intents are only supported by discord.js v12+, so you might have to upgrade.

One of the ClientOptions (ClientOptions is a typedef of potential options to pass when creating your client) is ws (yet another typedef of potential websocket options). In there, you'll find the intents property.

intents accepts a IntentsResolvable, which can be a string or an array of strings of an intent(s) (such as 'GUILD_PRESENCES'. All available intents), a bitfield (a number corresponding to an intent(s)), an instance of the Intents class.

Examples:

// using a string
const client = new Discord.Client({ ws: { intents: 'GUILD_PRESENCES' }});

// using an array
const client = new Discord.Client({ ws: { intents: ['GUILD_PRESENCES', 'GUILD_MEMBERS'] }});

// using a bitfield value
const client = new Discord.Client({ ws: { intents: 32509 }));

// using Intents class
const client = new Discord.Client({ ws: { intents: Discord.Intents.PRIVILEDGED }});
const client = new Discord.Client({ ws: { intents: new Discord.Intents(Discord.Intents.ALL) }});

Resources:

• Discord.js Official Guide - Gateway Intents
• Discord Developer Documentation - Gateway Intents
• Gateway Update FAQ
• Discord API Github - Issue 1363 - Privileged Intents
• Discord Blog - The Future of Bots on Discord

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TL;DR

To fix this issue, go to:

Discord Developer Portal > Applications > Your Application > Bot > Check both/either intent(s) (screenshot above)