Devin Not Working? Here's Why (And How to Fix It)

When Devin isn't working, the cause is almost always one of four things: the session is stuck waiting on a step that silently failed, you've run out of ACUs (Agent Compute Units) for the billing period, the GitHub/Slack integration lost its connection, or Cognition's infrastructure is having an outage. Developers should check Cognition's status page first, then verify ACU balance before assuming it's a bug.

• Devin runs on a metered ACU system, not unlimited usage, so "not working" is often "out of compute" (Cognition docs)
• Stuck sessions are the most commonly reported issue on Cognition's own community channels
• GitHub App permission drift (after repo transfers or org changes) is a recurring cause of PR creation failures

What does "Devin not working" usually mean?

"Devin not working" usually covers one of a few distinct symptoms: the session hangs with no new activity, Devin can't push commits or open a pull request, Slack/GitHub notifications stop arriving, or the dashboard shows an error when starting a new session. Each has a different root cause and fix.

Because Devin operates as an autonomous agent running inside a cloud sandbox, failures can happen at the orchestration layer (session scheduling), the tool layer (shell, browser, editor), or the integration layer (GitHub, Slack, Linear). Diagnosing which layer failed tells you which fix applies.

Why is Devin stuck or not responding?

Devin gets stuck when a sandboxed command hangs, a long-running build/test step times out, or the agent is waiting on a clarifying question that got buried in the session log. This is the single most common complaint across Devin users and typically resolves by resuming or restarting the session rather than waiting it out.

• Scroll to the bottom of the session, not just the summary, there's often a pending question
• Click "resume" before killing the session, a hard restart loses sandbox state
• If a shell command is hung (e.g., an interactive prompt Devin can't answer), end the session and start a fresh one with a more explicit, non-interactive instruction

Is Devin down right now?

Check Cognition's official status page before troubleshooting your own setup. Devin is a hosted agent, so outages, degraded sandbox provisioning, or model-provider incidents on Cognition's backend will look identical to a local bug. If the status page shows an active incident, wait it out instead of re-creating sessions.

Devin sessions depend on both Cognition's infrastructure and the underlying LLM provider, so a provider-side slowdown can also present as "Devin is slow" or "Devin stopped responding" even when Cognition's own systems are healthy.

Why won't Devin create a pull request?

Devin can't open a PR when its GitHub App lacks write/PR permissions on the target repo, the branch protection rules block the bot account, or the repo was transferred/renamed after the integration was set up. Re-authorizing the GitHub App and confirming repo access under Devin's settings fixes most of these.

Symptom	Likely cause	Fix
Session finishes, no PR appears	Missing repo write permission	Re-grant access in GitHub App settings
"Branch protected" error	Branch rules block bot pushes	Allow Devin's bot user as an exception
PR opens against wrong base branch	Default branch misconfigured	Set correct default branch in repo settings
Session errors on push	Repo renamed/transferred	Reconnect the integration

Why is Devin running out of ACUs or hitting rate limits?

Devin bills by ACUs consumed per session, and heavy tasks (large codebases, long test suites, repeated debugging loops) burn through ACUs fast, which cuts sessions short or blocks new ones until the next billing cycle or top-up. This is the most frequent reason Devin "stops working" mid-task.

Usagebar's breakdown of Devin's pricing and rate limits and dedicated Devin rate limit exceeded guide cover how ACU consumption scales with task complexity and what to do when you hit the ceiling.

How do I fix Devin not connecting to GitHub or Slack?

Reconnect the integration from Devin's settings page, confirm the OAuth token hasn't expired, and check that your workspace admin hasn't revoked app permissions. For Slack specifically, confirm Devin's bot user is still a member of the channel it's supposed to post in, channel membership changes silently break notifications.

How to fix Devin not working: step by step

1. Check Cognition's status page for an active incident
2. Scroll the full session log for a buried question or error, not just the summary
3. Check your ACU balance/usage dashboard for the billing period
4. Resume the session before killing it; sandbox state is lost on hard restart
5. Re-authorize the GitHub App and verify branch protection exceptions
6. Re-check Slack channel membership for the Devin bot
7. If none of the above apply, start a new session with a more explicit, non-interactive instruction

Key takeaways

• Most "Devin not working" reports trace back to a stuck sandbox step, not a platform-wide outage
• ACU exhaustion is a leading cause of sessions that stop mid-task, see Devin's rate limit breakdown for specifics
• PR creation failures are almost always a GitHub permissions issue, not an agent bug
• Always confirm the status page before assuming it's your setup

How does Devin compare to other coding agents?

Devin is an autonomous, long-running agent rather than an in-editor assistant, which means it fails differently than tools like Cursor or Codex. If you're evaluating alternatives after repeated reliability issues, Usagebar's comparisons of Cursor's pricing and rate limits and Codex rate limit exceeded cover how usage ceilings differ across tools.

Sources

• Devin Documentation (Cognition)
• Cognition Status Page
• Usagebar: Devin Pricing and Rate Limits
• Usagebar: Devin Rate Limit Exceeded