Discord bot online but not responding to commands

The bot shows a green dot but nothing happens. Go down this list; the first three cover most cases.

1. Read the console

Open Console in the panel. A login line means the bot connected. An error message or a repeated restart tells you where to look. If the server keeps stopping, start with Why your Discord bot keeps stopping.

2. Prefix commands do nothing: Message Content Intent

If your bot reads messages such as !help, switch on Message Content Intent on the Bot page of the Developer Portal and request it in your code. Without it the bot receives messages with empty text. See Fix "Used disallowed intents".

3. Slash commands do not appear

• The invite link needs the applications.commands scope. Invite the bot again with it.
• Your code must register the commands with Discord once; a command that exists only in code does not show up. Use guild commands (registered for one server) while testing, because they appear straight away. Global commands can take longer to show.
• Restart Discord (Ctrl+R) if a new command still does not show.

4. Permissions

The bot needs permission to see the channel and to send messages there. A channel can block a bot that the server role allows. Check the channel's permission overrides and the bot role's position. Errors such as Missing Access and Missing Permissions are explained in Common Discord bot errors.

5. The bot responds slowly or once and then stops

Look at memory and CPU on the Overview graphs. A bot at its memory limit is stopped by the server. See How much RAM does a Discord bot need.

6. Your code

Add a log line inside the command or message handler so the console shows when it runs. If nothing is logged, the event never arrived (intent or permission). If it is logged and nothing is sent, the error is in your reply code.