If your users are unable to connect to their financial institution through Plaid Link, there are a few steps you can take to assist them with the issue and provide guidance on how to proceed.
Connectivity errors can occur for many reasons, including:
- The user entered incorrect credentials or Multi-factor authentication (MFA) information
- The user is required to take action on their bank account
- The user does not have accounts that support the products your application uses
- There is an underlying problem with the Plaid connection to the financial institution
To determine which type of issue is occurring, you'll first need to get more information to characterize the issue.
How to Characterize Connectivity Issues
With these types of issues, it is important that you have access to a Plaid session identifier associated with the user's connection attempt, since the identifier will have an associated error code you can use to characterize the issue.
For connectivity issues, you will work with a session identifier such as a link_session_id or request_id. If there is an issue with establishing the connection, no item_id or access_token is generated.
Once you have obtained a session identifier, you can find information on the error code within the Plaid Dashboard using the Log Viewer tool.
If your application does not associate a Plaid identifier with your user, refer to the How do I provide troubleshooting Identifiers? article for information on implementing logging in your application.
Troubleshooting the Plaid Error Code
Once you have found the identifier in the Log viewer, take note of the error code. Find the corresponding page in the Errors section of the Plaid Docs to find specific information about what can cause the error, and how the user can take action to resolve the issue.
Checking for Issues with a Plaid Connection
If the user is encountering an error, where they cannot take action to resolve it, or the actions recommended did not resolve the issue, it is possible that there is an underlying issue with Plaid's connection to the financial institution. You can use the Institution Status pane on the dashboard to view the current status for a Plaid institution connection, including the current success rates of connections and any known issues that we've identified.
If you need further assistance, open an institution support case using your identifier, and our Support Team will investigate further.