Start with the symptom
Four different problems get reported as "the messages are broken", and they have four different causes. Find yours below.
The guest got the same message twice.
One message arrived as several separate texts.
A message went out for a cancelled reservation.
Guest replies are not reaching your inbox at all.
The same message arrived twice
Almost always this is one message configured in two places: once in your PMS, and once in Besty. Both fire, and the guest gets both.
To check the Besty side, open Journeys, then the journey that covers the reservation, then the Messages tab. Every message is a card, and each card shows its timing in plain English, for example "1 day before check in". Read that list against the automated messages configured in your PMS.
Where the same trigger appears in both, delete it from one. Besty and your PMS should never both own the same moment in the stay.
A different case: if Besty replied to a guest right after you replied by hand, that is not a duplicate automation. Besty detects a manual reply and suppresses the message it was about to send, so this usually means the two crossed in the same few seconds.
One message arrived as several texts
This is not Besty splitting the message. Text messages have a length limit, and your carrier splits anything longer into segments, which arrive as separate texts and can arrive out of order.
The fix is to shorten the message. Open Journeys, then Messages, then the pencil on the card, and edit Message Text. Line breaks and blank lines count toward the length, so removing decorative spacing often does it on its own.
If the content genuinely cannot be shortened, change Send Message Via from Text to Email for that message. Email has no segment limit. Long check-in instructions are usually better as email regardless.
A message went out for a cancelled reservation
Journey messages are scheduled from the reservation's dates. If a cancellation lands after a message has already been scheduled and sent, the guest gets it.
This bites hardest on messages that fire immediately after booking, because the window between booking and cancellation is exactly when instant cancellations happen.
The fix is timing, not conditions. In the message editor, timing is built from four controls together: Duration, Unit, Timing and Event. For a booking confirmation, set Event to Booking, Timing to After, and give it a real delay such as 2 Hours rather than sending at zero. Most cancellations that matter here happen inside that window.
One thing to know: the Select Conditions list does not include a cancellation condition. The conditions available are about the guest and the stay, such as Balance Paid, Listing Ready, Besty Rental Agreement Signed and Besty Damage Waiver Signed. If you have been looking for a "not cancelled" checkbox, it does not exist, and a delay is the intended answer.
Guest replies are not reaching your inbox
Work through these in order.
Check whether it is only your browser. Open Besty in a private or incognito window. If the inbox loads correctly there, the problem is a stale session in your normal window, not the account. Sign out and back in.
Retry a failed send. An error when sending from the inbox is usually transient and clears on a second attempt.
Check your PMS authorization. The connection between Besty and your PMS expires periodically and has to be re-granted by logging back into your PMS. When it lapses, several things break together: reservation data stops updating, message timing drifts, and door codes stop being delivered. If more than one of those is wrong at once, this is almost certainly why.
Check the channel. VRBO and Booking.com have no direct messaging connection, so their guest messages reach Besty by forwarded email. If replies are missing on only those two channels, the forwarding address is the thing to check, not the PMS connection.
If listing details rather than messages are out of date, that is a separate refresh. Open the listing, go to What Besty Knows, and use the re-sync button at the top, which is labelled with the name of your PMS.
Still Having Trouble?
If a PMS expiry warning keeps coming back after you re-authenticate, or messages are still missing after the steps above, reach out via chat or at support@getbesty.ai with the guest name and the time the message should have sent.