Discord bot appears online but slash commands not working and showing 'application did not respond' error

Other Questions Discord bot
1

My Discord bot connects successfully and shows as online, but I’m having issues with slash commands. When I try to use any command, I get an error message saying ‘The application did not respond’. The weird thing is that old commands I deleted are still visible, but the new ones I created don’t appear at all.

const { Client, Collection, GatewayIntentBits } = require('discord.js');
const path = require('path');
const fs = require('fs');
require('dotenv').config();

const bot = new Client({
  intents: [GatewayIntentBits.Guilds]
});

bot.slashCommands = new Collection();

const commandFolder = path.join(__dirname, 'commands');
const cmdFiles = fs.readdirSync(commandFolder).filter(f => f.endsWith('.js'));

for (const fileName of cmdFiles) {
  const cmdPath = path.join(commandFolder, fileName);
  const cmdModule = require(cmdPath);
  bot.slashCommands.set(cmdModule.name, cmdModule);
}

bot.on('ready', () => {
  console.log(`Bot ${bot.user.username} is now online!`);
});

bot.on('interactionCreate', async (interaction) => {
  if (!interaction.isChatInputCommand()) return;

  const cmd = bot.slashCommands.get(interaction.commandName);
  if (!cmd) return;

  try {
    await cmd.run(interaction);
  } catch (err) {
    console.log(err);
    await interaction.reply({ content: 'Command failed to execute.', ephemeral: true });
  }
});

bot.login(process.env.BOT_TOKEN);

Any ideas on what might be causing this problem?

2

Had this exact issue and it drove me crazy for hours. Your bot code’s fine for handling interactions, but Discord doesn’t know your commands exist yet. You need a separate script that registers them with the REST API - something like rest.put(Routes.applicationCommands(clientId), { body: commands }). Those old deleted commands sticking around? Classic Discord cache weirdness. They’ll disappear eventually or just reload Discord to force it. Run the registration script every time you change commands.

3

hey, you might’ve missed registering the slash cmds with Discord’s API. without that, new commands won’t show. check for a deploy-commands.js file or smth similar to manage the registration through the REST API.

4

The ‘application did not respond’ error often indicates that your bot received the interaction but failed to reply in a timely manner, hitting Discord’s timeout. Review your command files to ensure each one contains a proper run function, utilizing either interaction.reply() or interaction.deferReply() to handle longer tasks. Additionally, confirm that the command files correctly export the name and run properties; any discrepancies here can lead to the error you’re experiencing.