Widgets Self Auto-Popping

Have noticed that for some hours now a number of my clients chat widgets are auto opening without specifying it to do. Any assist on this? @Chidi

DDrBanny Have noticed that for some hours now a number of my clients chat widgets are aut...

Tico | Voiceflow Assistant•9/26/25, 12:26 PM

Why the widget suddenly "pops" open

Voiceflow’s web-chat remembers the last state of the widget (open / closed + the current conversation) by default.
That’s because the standard embed snippet uses

assistant: {
  persistence: 'localStorage'   // default
}

assistant: {
  persistence: 'localStorage'   // default
}

With

localStorage

localStorage

the widget saves a flag in the browser. If a visitor opened the chat at any point, every subsequent page load – even hours or days later – will reload the widget already opened. Nothing else in your code has to call open()open() for this to happen.

---

How to stop it

**Disable persistence entirely** (widget always starts closed):```jswindow.voiceflow.chat.load({ verify: { projectID: 'YOUR_PROJECT_ID' }, url: 'https://general-runtime.voiceflow.com', versionID: 'production', assistant: { persistence: 'memory' // no data stored → widget never auto-opens }});```
**Only remember the session until the browser is closed** (resets next visit):```jsassistant: { persistence: 'sessionStorage' }```
**Force-close on page load** (if you still want to keep `localStorage` for the convo):```jswindow.voiceflow.chat.load({...}).then(() => { window.voiceflow.chat.close();});```

---

Things that do not open the widget

• Proactive message bubbles – they sit on the launcher but won’t open the window.
• Normal incoming messages – only open()open() or the persistence flag re-opens it.

---
Give one of the options above a try; once persistence is set to 'memory''memory' or you manually call close()close() in the on-load callback the widget will stay minimised until the visitor decides to open it.

Docs for reference:
Chat persistence options → https://docs.voiceflow.com
Custom triggers (open / close API) → https://docs.voiceflow.com

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DrBannyOP•9/26/25, 12:27 PM

All uses "memory". @Chidi any assist