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My notifications inbox now shows -1 pending notifications.
This persists after reloading the page, and when I log in on an incognito window, so I suspect this is server-side.

Fow what it's worth, I'm on the latest Firefox, on windows.

I got a notification about the new chat RO management features on both SO and SE's Metas. After opening this notification, it broke.

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enter image description here

I guess I owe SO a notification now?

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  • 9
    Looks similar to the MSE Marking "Set your rooms' culture" notification as read gives you a negative number of notifications Commented Nov 10, 2025 at 20:26
  • Yeap, same situation Commented Nov 10, 2025 at 20:29
  • 2
    I saw the same thing Commented Nov 10, 2025 at 20:38
  • It happened to me after I read all the pending messages and returned to the original page. Commented Nov 10, 2025 at 22:25
  • 2
    same as Inbox indicator shows negative counter on MSE Commented Nov 11, 2025 at 7:32
  • 3
    This question is similar to: Inbox message's activity indicator showing negative number. If you believe it’s different, please edit the question, make it clear how it’s different and/or how the answers on that question are not helpful for your problem. Commented Nov 11, 2025 at 13:13
  • 7
    Let's not dupe close this post.. it is the one marked "status-review" now. That should put it in the lead. Commented Nov 11, 2025 at 14:27
  • happens occasionally, has happened since forever. "mark all as read" and move on. Commented Nov 13, 2025 at 17:43

1 Answer 1

Reset to default
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TL;DR: click the 'Mark all as read' to resolve this issue.

Thank you for reporting this issue. I did some digging and found that when we batch-sent the guideline notifications, the step that updates the inbox unread count didn’t run correctly for some users. It affected some users who own multiple chat rooms with the notification linking to the meta post, which is why only some people saw the issue. Since it was a one-time notification, this turned out to be a one-off glitch. Clicking ‘Mark all as read’ will reset the unread count to 0 and clear it up.

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    Thank you, that did indeed fix the issue. My notification debt has been settled :D Commented Nov 11, 2025 at 23:54

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