ERR_TRIGGER_INACTIVE on Zapier: Trigger not firing. Root cause: Trigger condition not being met or webhook not receiving data Step 1: Confirm the Zap is turned on and not paused due to errors. Go to zapier.com/app/zaps and look at the toggle next to your Zap. A grey toggle means the Zap is off. A yellow warning icon means Zapier has auto-paused the Zap after repeated errors — click the Zap name to see the pause reason. Zapier automatically pauses Zaps after 5 consecutive errors to prevent runaway task consumption. If it was auto-paused, fix the underlying error first, then click "Turn on" to re-enable it. Check zapier.com/app/history for the error that caused the pause. Step 2: Distinguish between a polling trigger and a webhook trigger. Zapier triggers work in two fundamentally different ways, and the fix depends on which type you have. Polling triggers (most app integrations) check the connected app every 1–15 minutes for new data — if no new records appeared in the app, the trigger will not fire. Webhook triggers (Catch Hook, or apps like Stripe and GitHub) fire immediately when the source app sends data. Click the trigger step in the editor — if it says "Instant" in the top right, it is a webhook. If it says "Polling", it checks on a schedule. Polling triggers will not fire if no new records were created in the source app. Step 3: For polling triggers: verify new records exist in the source app. Go to the source app (e.g., your CRM, spreadsheet, or form tool) and confirm that new records were actually created after the Zap was turned on. Zapier polling triggers only detect records created after the Zap was activated — they do not backfill historical records. If you turned the Zap on and then checked immediately without creating a new record, the trigger has nothing to detect. Create a test record in the source app, wait 15 minutes, and check zapier.com/app/history to see if the task appears. Step 4: For webhook triggers: verify the webhook URL is correctly configured in the source app. Click the trigger step in the Zapier editor and copy the webhook URL shown (it looks like https://hooks.zapier.com/hooks/catch/...). Log into the source app and go to its webhook or integration settings. Confirm this exact URL is entered as the destination. Common mistakes: the URL was entered with a trailing space, the source app requires HTTPS but the URL was entered as HTTP, or the source app has a test mode and production mode webhook and the wrong one is configured. Send a test event from the source app and watch for it to appear in the Zapier trigger step. Step 5: Check whether a Filter step is blocking all events. If the Zap has a Filter step immediately after the trigger, it may be filtering out all incoming events. Click the Filter step → click "Test & Continue" with your test data. If the filter shows "Your Zap would not have continued" for every test event, the filter conditions are too restrictive or are referencing the wrong fields. Temporarily disable the filter by clicking the three-dot menu on the filter step → "Skip this step" to confirm whether the filter is the cause of the trigger appearing inactive. Step 6: Re-authenticate the trigger app connection if the trigger stopped working after a password change. Go to zapier.com/app/connections and find the account connected to your trigger app. If the account shows a warning icon, the OAuth token has expired — this commonly happens after a password change, a security policy refresh, or when the connected app revokes third-party access. Click "Reconnect" and complete the OAuth flow. After reconnecting, go back to the Zap editor, click the trigger step, and run a test to confirm data flows correctly. Re-authentication fixes the majority of "trigger stopped working" issues that appear suddenly.