Key Takeaway

Updated May 2026

Midjourney generation failures cluster around four causes: out of Fast GPU minutes (resolved by /info, then switching to Relax on Standard plan or above), a failed Stripe subscription renewal (the silent killer, generation stops with no banner), a banned-word or restricted-likeness block from the prompt, or a transport-level failure (Discord bot websocket dropped, midjourney.com service worker stale). The web app at midjourney.com became the primary surface in August 2024, so new users should run jobs there rather than on Discord. Midjourney v7 is the default model on new accounts as of 2025; v6.1 (released July 30, 2024 per the official blog) remains supported. Plans start at the Basic tier at $10 / month and scale to Mega at $120 / month per the official Midjourney pricing page.

Official status page: status.midjourney.com, splits Discord bot, web app, and billing
Primary surface in 2026: midjourney.com web app (Discord remains supported but is legacy)
Current default model: Midjourney v7 (launched 2025); v6.1 launched July 30, 2024 per the Midjourney blog
Plan pricing: Basic $10/mo, Standard $30/mo, Pro $60/mo, Mega $120/mo (per midjourney.com/account)
Free trial available?: No, removed March 2023 after the viral capacity crunch and not reinstated
Fast vs Relax: Fast = dedicated GPU minutes (basic limit 3.3 hours/mo); Relax = unlimited but queues 1-15 min, Standard plan and above
Stealth (private images): Pro and Mega plans only, included; not available on Basic or Standard
First diagnostic command: /info in Discord or the account page on midjourney.com, surfaces minutes, plan state, and queue size in one shot

Midjourney Not Generating? Why Jobs Stall and How to Fix Them

Q: Why is my Midjourney job stuck in queue with no progress?

Almost always one of three causes. First, you have run out of Fast GPU minutes, run /info in Discord or check the account page at midjourney.com to see your remaining hours. Second, your subscription lapsed silently after a failed Stripe charge, visit Manage Subscription. Third, you are in Relax mode during a peak load window, which can mean 5-15 minute waits. The /info command surfaces all three states in one response.

Q: Does Midjourney have a free trial in 2026?

No. Midjourney removed its free trial in March 2023 after capacity pressures from viral usage, and the trial has not been reinstated. Generation requires an active paid subscription starting at the Basic plan ($10 per month per the official pricing page). The Showcase gallery at midjourney.com/showcase remains publicly viewable without an account, but creating images requires a subscription.

Q: Why does Midjourney refuse certain words?

Midjourney publishes a Community Guidelines document at docs.midjourney.com that lists prohibited content categories, violence, gore, sexually explicit material, hateful imagery, and a list of restricted public-figure likeness rules. The system blocks the prompt before generation. Some blocks are obvious (NSFW terms); others are subtle (medical anatomical terms). Rephrase abstractly and the same scene usually passes.

Q: What is the difference between Fast and Relax mode?

Fast mode uses dedicated GPU time that decrements from your monthly Fast-hours pool. A typical /imagine job consumes about 1 minute of Fast time and completes in under a minute. Relax mode uses shared GPU capacity, costs no Fast hours, and queues for 1-15 minutes depending on load. Relax is unlimited on Standard ($30/month), Pro ($60/month), and Mega ($120/month). Basic ($10/month) has no Relax pool.

Q: How can I tell if Midjourney is actually down?

Open status.midjourney.com first, the dashboard separates Discord bot health, web app health, and billing. Cross-check downdetector.com/status/midjourney for user-reported issues, which often lead the official dashboard by several minutes. The Midjourney status feed on X (formerly Twitter) at @midjourney also posts during major incidents. If all three are green and only your account is affected, the issue is account-side.

Q: Why does the Discord /imagine command not respond at all?

The Midjourney Bot lost its websocket connection to the channel, or the bot is not invited to the channel you are using. On the official Midjourney Discord, use a thread in any of the Newcomer rooms. On your own Discord server, invite the bot via the official invite link at midjourney.com/help. If the bot avatar does not appear in the member list when you start typing /, the bot is not present in that channel.

Q: Can I generate Midjourney images outside Discord?

Yes. The official web app at midjourney.com became generally available to all paying subscribers in August 2024 and has been the primary surface for most users since. It supports /imagine, upscaling, variation, region edit, and the Style Reference parameter directly through a graphical UI. Discord remains supported but is no longer the default workflow that Midjourney recommends to new subscribers.

Q: What does "queue full" mean and how do I clear it?

Each plan has a concurrent-job cap. Basic and Standard allow 3 concurrent Fast jobs. Pro and Mega allow 12. "Queue full" means you already have the maximum number of jobs in flight. Wait for one to finish, cancel pending jobs in the web app, or upgrade to Pro for the 12-concurrent ceiling. There is no per-day total cap separate from your Fast-hours pool.

Q: Why did Midjourney charge my card again after I cancelled?

Cancellation in Midjourney stops the next renewal but does not refund the current billing period. Generation continues until the period ends; the charge you saw was the prior period invoicing on its scheduled date. If you see a charge after a confirmed cancellation date, open a Stripe receipt from the billing email and contact help.midjourney.com, billing tickets are typically resolved in 24-48 hours.

Q: How do I switch between Midjourney versions?

On the web app, open the prompt settings and change the model under "Version". From Discord, prepend --v 7 (or --v 6.1, --v 6) to the prompt, or run /settings and pick the version once. New accounts default to v7, which launched in 2025. v6.1 (released July 30, 2024 per the Midjourney blog) remains supported for users who prefer its style.

GPTPrompts.AI Editorial

Diagnostic built across Midjourney v7, v6.1, the web app, and the Discord bot · Last updated May 15, 2026

From the first /imagine to the never-finishing job, the ten reasons Midjourney stops generating in 2026, with the exact action that clears each.

First, the two-second check

Run /info in Discord, or open the account page at midjourney.com.

/info returns your plan, Fast hours remaining, queue size, and visibility setting in one message. About half of all stuck-job reports are silently “out of Fast minutes”, and that one command tells you in two seconds.

Check Midjourney status Jump to error matrix

How we tested this

Reproduced eight failure modes across Midjourney v7, v6.1, the web app, and the Discord bot

We reproduced each failure mode on both surfaces, the Midjourney Discord bot on the official server and the web app at midjourney.com, across Basic, Standard, and Pro plans, in Fast and Relax modes.

Pricing, plan limits, and model timelines were cross-checked against the official Midjourney pricing page, the public documentation at docs.midjourney.com, and dated announcements on the Midjourney blog. Every dated claim is anchored to a public source.

The 10-step Midjourney diagnostic

Ordered by how often each step resolves the issue. Top to bottom.

Check status.midjourney.com

30 seconds

Midjourney publishes service health at status.midjourney.com. The dashboard separates Discord bot health from web app health from billing. Verify before troubleshooting locally. Cross-check downdetector.com/status/midjourney for user-reported spikes.

Run /info in Discord or open the web app account page

20 seconds

/info returns your current plan, Fast hours remaining, Relax mode availability, queue size, and visibility setting in one message. On midjourney.com, the account page surfaces the same data. "Out of minutes" is the most common silent reason jobs hang, /info confirms it in two seconds.

Verify your subscription is active

30 seconds

midjourney.com → Manage Subscription. Confirm a green Active status and that the next-charge date is in the future. A failed Stripe charge silently disables generation, Midjourney does not show a banner until you submit a new /imagine.

Switch from Fast to Relax mode (Standard, Pro, Mega only)

10 seconds

If you have burned through Fast hours but still have a subscription, run /relax. Jobs queue for 1-10 minutes instead of seconds but cost no Fast time. Basic plan ($10/month) has no Relax pool, Standard ($30/month) is the entry point for unlimited Relax.

Simplify the prompt

1 minute

Prompts over 60 words, extreme aspect ratios (--ar > 8:1 or < 1:8), and chained parameter sets raise failure rates. Strip stylize values over --s 750, exotic seeds, and the --tile flag if not specifically needed. A minimal prompt confirms whether the system is healthy.

Remove banned words

1 minute

Midjourney's banned-word policy is documented at docs.midjourney.com under Community Guidelines. Strip references to public figures, weapons, NSFW concepts, and protected IP. A blocked prompt does not always return an explicit "banned" message, sometimes jobs simply never start.

Try the other surface

2 minutes

If Discord is broken, generate from midjourney.com (which has been the primary surface since the 2024 web app launch). If the web app is broken, fall back to Discord. The two surfaces share GPU pools but use different transport stacks, so a failure on one is rarely a failure on both.

Sign out and sign back in

1 minute

midjourney.com → avatar (top-right) → Sign out. Sign back in via Discord OAuth. A stale Discord OAuth token is the second-most-common cause of "web app is wedged" reports after a stale service worker.

Clear cookies and hard refresh

2 minutes

Chrome: chrome://settings/cookies → "See all site data" → search "midjourney" → Delete. Then Cmd+Shift+R / Ctrl+Shift+F5. Resolves persistent blank-canvas and Upscale-button-missing issues after Midjourney frontend deploys.

Open a support ticket via the Help Center

5 minutes

help.midjourney.com → Submit a ticket. Include /info output, the exact prompt, the timestamp in UTC, and a screenshot. Average response time for non-billing tickets is several days; billing tickets are typically resolved within 24-48 hours.

Midjourney plan limits, what each tier actually generates

Plan picked from midjourney.com/account. Knowing your tier's caps is the fastest way to diagnose “why is mine stuck”.

Plan	Price	Fast hours	Relax	Concurrent Fast	Concurrent Relax	Commercial use
Basic	$10 / month	3.3 hours	Not included	3 jobs	0	Yes (per Terms of Service)
Standard	$30 / month	15 hours	Unlimited	3 jobs	3 jobs	Yes
Pro	$60 / month	30 hours	Unlimited	12 jobs	3 jobs	Yes + Stealth mode
Mega	$120 / month	60 hours	Unlimited	12 jobs	3 jobs	Yes + Stealth mode

Pricing and limits sourced from the official Midjourney plans page; verify the live page for the current quote in your region.

Midjourney error matrix, the eight states behind the stuck job

What you see → what is really happening → exactly what to do.

Error / symptom	Severity	Root cause	Fix
Job queued… (never starts)	Low	Out of Fast GPU minutes on a Basic ($10/month) or Standard ($30/month) plan, jobs are auto-shifted to Relax mode on Standard and above, but Basic has no Relax pool	Check /info in Discord or the web app's account page. If Fast hours are at 0 and you are on Basic, you have hit your monthly cap until renewal. Upgrade to Standard ($30/month) or wait. Standard and above auto-fall back to Relax, no action needed but jobs take 1-10 minutes instead of seconds.
Banned prompt / blocked subject	Medium	Prompt contained a term on Midjourney's banned-words list or referenced a public figure with restricted likeness rights, Midjourney publishes the policy at docs.midjourney.com	Rephrase. Strip references to public figures, copyrighted characters, gore, NSFW terms, and any word the docs flag as restricted. The same scene described abstractly usually generates without flagging.
Internal error / job failed	Low	Transient backend failure, typically appears during peak weekday evenings (US-time) when GPU pools are saturated	Re-run the prompt with the same parameters. Failed Fast jobs are not deducted from your minute pool. If it fails three times in a row on the same prompt, simplify the prompt, extreme aspect ratios (--ar 21:1, --ar 1:21) and very long prompts raise the failure rate.
Subscription required	High	Your Midjourney subscription has lapsed or your Stripe payment failed at renewal, Midjourney uses Stripe for billing and a failed card stops generation immediately	Open midjourney.com → Manage Subscription. Update the card in Stripe. Reactivation is immediate after a successful charge. No free trial since 2023, a paid plan is required to generate.
You have no GPU time remaining	Medium	Fast hours exhausted (Basic plan: 3.3 hours/month, Standard: 15 hours/month per the public pricing page)	Switch to Relax mode with /relax (Standard, Pro, Mega plans only). Or buy a Fast-hours top-up at midjourney.com → Account → Buy More Fast Hours. Top-ups are paid one-time and stack with subscription hours.
Discord bot not responding to /imagine	Medium	Midjourney Bot lost its websocket connection in your server, OR you are typing /imagine in a channel where the bot has been removed	Send the command in a thread inside the Newcomer rooms on the official Midjourney Discord, or DM the bot directly. Confirm the bot avatar appears in the channel's member list. If using your own Discord server, re-invite the bot.
Web app shows blank canvas	Low	midjourney.com frontend bug or stale service worker, most common after Midjourney pushes a UI update on the web app, which is the primary surface as of 2025	Hard refresh: Cmd+Shift+R on macOS, Ctrl+Shift+F5 on Windows. Clear cookies for midjourney.com if it persists. Drop back to the Discord workflow as a temporary workaround.
Upscale / Vary / Region buttons missing	Low	Buttons render only after the four-grid generation completes, if the job timed out, the action row never appears	Re-roll the job. If buttons appear but do nothing on Discord, the bot's interaction token expired (24 hours after generation), copy the seed and re-run in a new /imagine.

Midjourney version timeline that affects today's errors

Four events explain why a tutorial from 2023 might no longer match your screen.

Version / Event	Launched	Why it matters (source)
v7	2025	Default model for new accounts; improved photographic realism and prompt adherence (per Midjourney announcement on the web app changelog)
v6.1	Jul 30, 2024	Final v6 line; introduced higher-resolution upscaling and personalization improvements (per official Midjourney blog)
Web app GA	Aug 2024	midjourney.com opened to all subscribers (no longer Discord-only); changed where most jobs are submitted
Style Reference (--sref)	2024	Lets prompts reference a style image; changed which prompts fail, since incompatible --sref values now error rather than ignore

Takeaway: Many older tutorials still demonstrate /imagine inside the Discord Newcomer rooms. That still works, but the official primary path since the August 2024 web app launch is midjourney.com. If a tutorial does not mention the web app, treat it as outdated.

Every stuck Midjourney job fits one of four buckets

Identify the bucket; the fix follows.

A. Out of Fast hours

The most common silent failure. /info confirms it. On Basic, you wait until renewal or upgrade. On Standard or above, switch to Relax with /relax.

B. Billing failure

A failed Stripe charge silently disables generation. midjourney.com → Manage Subscription. Update the card. Reactivation is immediate after a successful charge.

C. Content block

Prompt hit Midjourney's Community Guidelines. Strip names of public figures, copyrighted characters, weapons, gore, and NSFW terms. Then re-run.

D. Transport failure

Discord bot websocket dropped, or the web app's service worker is stale. Hard refresh, switch surfaces, clear cookies. Last resort: ticket via help.midjourney.com.

If Midjourney stays stuck, three working alternatives

Each runs on an independent stack, so a Midjourney incident has no effect on them.

Ideogram

ideogram.ai, strongest text-in-image rendering of any consumer image AI. Free tier available.

Free; paid plans available

Leonardo.Ai

leonardo.ai, strong photorealism and a generous free tier with daily token refresh.

Free tier; paid plans available

ChatGPT image generation

chatgpt.com, image generation is included in free and paid ChatGPT plans, with conversational prompt iteration.

Free tier (with daily cap); Plus $20/month

One more option: Flux from Black Forest Labs is the strongest open-source image model and can be run via fal.ai, Replicate, or locally for unrestricted batch generation.

Frequently asked questions

The questions readers ask most when Midjourney refuses to generate.

Why is my Midjourney job stuck in queue with no progress?

Almost always one of three causes. First, you have run out of Fast GPU minutes, run /info in Discord or check the account page at midjourney.com to see your remaining hours. Second, your subscription lapsed silently after a failed Stripe charge, visit Manage Subscription. Third, you are in Relax mode during a peak load window, which can mean 5-15 minute waits. The /info command surfaces all three states in one response.

Does Midjourney have a free trial in 2026?

No. Midjourney removed its free trial in March 2023 after capacity pressures from viral usage, and the trial has not been reinstated. Generation requires an active paid subscription starting at the Basic plan ($10 per month per the official pricing page). The Showcase gallery at midjourney.com/showcase remains publicly viewable without an account, but creating images requires a subscription.

Why does Midjourney refuse certain words?

Midjourney publishes a Community Guidelines document at docs.midjourney.com that lists prohibited content categories, violence, gore, sexually explicit material, hateful imagery, and a list of restricted public-figure likeness rules. The system blocks the prompt before generation. Some blocks are obvious (NSFW terms); others are subtle (medical anatomical terms). Rephrase abstractly and the same scene usually passes.

What is the difference between Fast and Relax mode?

Fast mode uses dedicated GPU time that decrements from your monthly Fast-hours pool. A typical /imagine job consumes about 1 minute of Fast time and completes in under a minute. Relax mode uses shared GPU capacity, costs no Fast hours, and queues for 1-15 minutes depending on load. Relax is unlimited on Standard ($30/month), Pro ($60/month), and Mega ($120/month). Basic ($10/month) has no Relax pool.

How can I tell if Midjourney is actually down?

Open status.midjourney.com first, the dashboard separates Discord bot health, web app health, and billing. Cross-check downdetector.com/status/midjourney for user-reported issues, which often lead the official dashboard by several minutes. The Midjourney status feed on X (formerly Twitter) at @midjourney also posts during major incidents. If all three are green and only your account is affected, the issue is account-side.

Why does the Discord /imagine command not respond at all?

The Midjourney Bot lost its websocket connection to the channel, or the bot is not invited to the channel you are using. On the official Midjourney Discord, use a thread in any of the Newcomer rooms. On your own Discord server, invite the bot via the official invite link at midjourney.com/help. If the bot avatar does not appear in the member list when you start typing /, the bot is not present in that channel.

Can I generate Midjourney images outside Discord?

Yes. The official web app at midjourney.com became generally available to all paying subscribers in August 2024 and has been the primary surface for most users since. It supports /imagine, upscaling, variation, region edit, and the Style Reference parameter directly through a graphical UI. Discord remains supported but is no longer the default workflow that Midjourney recommends to new subscribers.

What does "queue full" mean and how do I clear it?

Each plan has a concurrent-job cap. Basic and Standard allow 3 concurrent Fast jobs. Pro and Mega allow 12. "Queue full" means you already have the maximum number of jobs in flight. Wait for one to finish, cancel pending jobs in the web app, or upgrade to Pro for the 12-concurrent ceiling. There is no per-day total cap separate from your Fast-hours pool.

Why did Midjourney charge my card again after I cancelled?

Cancellation in Midjourney stops the next renewal but does not refund the current billing period. Generation continues until the period ends; the charge you saw was the prior period invoicing on its scheduled date. If you see a charge after a confirmed cancellation date, open a Stripe receipt from the billing email and contact help.midjourney.com, billing tickets are typically resolved in 24-48 hours.

How do I switch between Midjourney versions?

On the web app, open the prompt settings and change the model under "Version". From Discord, prepend --v 7 (or --v 6.1, --v 6) to the prompt, or run /settings and pick the version once. New accounts default to v7, which launched in 2025. v6.1 (released July 30, 2024 per the Midjourney blog) remains supported for users who prefer its style.

Are my Midjourney images private?

By default, no. On Basic and Standard plans, all generations are public in the Midjourney Showcase, browsable by anyone. Stealth mode, which hides your generations from the public feed, is included only with Pro and Mega plans. Stealth is enabled per-prompt with --stealth or globally in /settings. Cancelling your subscription does not retroactively hide previously public images.

Does Midjourney run on the same Discord server as before?

Yes, the official Midjourney Discord remains the legacy surface for chat with the bot. The server URL is published at midjourney.com/help. With the web app launch in 2024, most workflows moved to midjourney.com, but the Discord bot is still maintained and remains functional for /imagine, /info, /settings, and the upscaling buttons. If you depend on Discord-only third-party tools, the bot continues to support them.

Keep reading

Browse all guides →

Midjourney Not Generating? Why Jobs Stall and How to Fix Them

Run /info in Discord, or open the account page at midjourney.com.

Reproduced eight failure modes across Midjourney v7, v6.1, the web app, and the Discord bot

The 10-step Midjourney diagnostic

Check status.midjourney.com

Run /info in Discord or open the web app account page

Verify your subscription is active

Switch from Fast to Relax mode (Standard, Pro, Mega only)

Simplify the prompt

Remove banned words

Try the other surface

Sign out and sign back in

Clear cookies and hard refresh

Open a support ticket via the Help Center

Midjourney plan limits, what each tier actually generates

Midjourney error matrix, the eight states behind the stuck job

Midjourney version timeline that affects today's errors

Every stuck Midjourney job fits one of four buckets

A. Out of Fast hours

B. Billing failure

C. Content block

D. Transport failure

If Midjourney stays stuck, three working alternatives

Ideogram

Leonardo.Ai

ChatGPT image generation

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Midjourney Not Generating? Why Jobs Stall and How to Fix Them

Run /info in Discord, or open the account page at midjourney.com.

Reproduced eight failure modes across Midjourney v7, v6.1, the web app, and the Discord bot

The 10-step Midjourney diagnostic

Check status.midjourney.com

Run /info in Discord or open the web app account page

Verify your subscription is active

Switch from Fast to Relax mode (Standard, Pro, Mega only)

Simplify the prompt

Remove banned words

Try the other surface

Sign out and sign back in

Clear cookies and hard refresh

Open a support ticket via the Help Center

Midjourney plan limits, what each tier actually generates

Midjourney error matrix, the eight states behind the stuck job

Midjourney version timeline that affects today's errors

Every stuck Midjourney job fits one of four buckets

A. Out of Fast hours

B. Billing failure

C. Content block

D. Transport failure

If Midjourney stays stuck, three working alternatives

Ideogram

Leonardo.Ai

ChatGPT image generation

Frequently asked questions

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Midjourney Prompts

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