Kik Captcha Not Working – What To Do

The Kik chat app is a highly popular and very high-quality chat app with a huge userbase, especially among younger people. With more than 300 million registered accounts (including about half of all teenagers in the United States), Kik is one of the most widely-used chat apps out there. It has a lot of features, is well-designed and implemented, and is easy to sign up for. However, all social media applications, and Kik is no exception, have to take steps to weed out spammers and bots. Kik does this in the signup process with a simple Captcha verification. There’s no problem as long as everything is working – but what happens if the Kik Captcha doesn’t work?

What is a Captcha?

Captchas are everywhere now. They are the first line of defense against bots and work very well. They are a piece of code that sits inside a signup or page that requires human interaction to complete. The idea is to foil mass signup bots that would just spoil the experience for everyone by imposing a task that’s very simple for a person, but really difficult for a robot. For example, Google has a Captcha system where it presents a number of very small images and asks you to identify all the images that contain cars, or signs, or something similar.

Captcha are deliberately created so no inexpensive automated system can complete them. While they may be seen as a pain, they actually help improve your web experience. By reducing the number of spam bots around, your entire Kik experience is elevated. While Kik themselves use bots, they are ‘friendly’ ones that aren’t trying to fool you into thinking they’re human, and do not want to spam, steal or rip you off.

Kik Captcha

Currently, Kik use ‘FunCaptcha’ a mini app that requires you to rotate an image so the animal within it stands up. It is a variation of the usual ‘type the letters’ or ‘tap the squares with a store front’ Captcha and a little more amusing, hence the name.

You are presented with an image with an animal in it. You job is to rotate that image until the animal stands upright. As this is designed to confuse bots, the animal is usually within a mess of other images so it cannot be identified by a machine.

If you see the image, hold your finger on one edge and rotate it until the featured animal is standing upright. The Captcha should then complete and you move on to the next step. That should be it.

Kik Captcha doesn’t work

There are occasions when the Kik Captcha doesn’t work. For some reason you cannot see an image, the image doesn’t move or doesn’t complete once you have moved it. There are a couple of things you can do. You can refresh the Captcha, reload the app or reinstall it.

Refresh the Captcha – The captcha should have a little refresh circle underneath. Tap this and try again. There is a time limit on the image and if this expires or doesn’t register properly it can cause issues.

Reload the Kik app – If a refresh doesn’t work, close Kik down, force stop the app on your smartphone and open it again. You may have to re-enter your details to get back to the Captcha but it is the next best thing if the refresh doesn’t work.

Reinstall Kik – Something nobody wants to do if they can help it. Stop the app, uninstall completely from your smartphone, go back to the app store and download a fresh copy.

One of those three methods will surely get you past the Kik Captcha. While it might be frustrating, once you’re through that should be the last time you ever see it.