#Why doesn't my support automation's reply arrive after a long wait?

Because each channel only lets you reply inside a conversation window, counted from the contact's last message. If the automation waits longer than that window, the following reply never goes out — and Clickmax warns you while you are still building the automation, instead of letting you publish something that would silently vanish.

Who sees it and where

• The warning shows up on the Then card of the Support automation builder, on the wait action itself, and the same explanation is repeated in the conversation preview.
• Any member with access to Support sees the same warning — it depends on the channel and the connected accounts, not on your role in the workspace.
• While the warning means a certain loss, the Save button stays blocked. In the other cases it stays enabled: Clickmax warns you, but the call is yours.

#The window differs per channel

The window is always reopened by the contact. Every time they write, the count restarts — including when they reply to your automation. The automation's own reply does not reopen anything.

#Instagram has a longer window, but it is per account

On Instagram the window goes from 24 hours to 7 days on accounts where Meta's human agent is enabled. That is a per-account setting, configured on Meta's side — not on Clickmax, and not for the whole channel.

So when one automation covers several Instagram accounts at once, Clickmax assumes the worst case of the set: if one account delivers in 24 hours, that is where the message is lost, and the warning names that exact account. Enabling the human agent on it is the cheapest way to keep the wait you designed.

#The warnings and what to do about each

• "The reply won't reach the contact", with an account named — the loss is certain on that account. Enable Meta's human agent there, shorten the wait, or move the reply before it.
• "The reply won't reach the contact", with no account named — the window belongs to the whole channel (WhatsApp, or Instagram with no extended account). Only shortening the wait fixes it.
• "It only arrives if the contact wrote again" — the automation already spoke to the contact before the wait, so the window may have been reopened by them. This is the "reply now, follow up in two days" pattern, and it works whenever the contact answers.
• "The wait reaches the channel maximum" — the wait hit the longest window the channel can hold open, even on accounts with the human agent enabled. Here no account delivers, and enabling anything on Meta will not change that: the only way out is to shorten the wait or move the reply before it.

#The 7-day ceiling applies to the accumulated wait

The wait field accepts at most 7 days per action, but what counts is the sum of the waits up to the reply. Two waits of 5 days and 4 days add up to 9 days — past the ceiling of any channel, even with the human agent enabled.

Equality counts too: a wait of exactly 7 days already reaches Instagram's ceiling. The window closes the moment the deadline completes, so scheduling the reply right at the limit is betting on the provider's clock.

#This is unrelated to Meta's sending limit

The conversation window and Meta's sending limit are different things. The window decides whether you can reply to a specific contact; the sending limit decides how many contacts can receive a paid message per day. An automation can be inside the window and still hit the sending limit — and the other way around.