Niantic are currently in the process of investigating a bug in Pokémon Go that is affecting Friendship XP in the app.
This bug has been impacting players around the world for several days, but the developers have finally released an official warning and asked any affected players to reach out to Niantic Support.
Friendship XP is used to level up your Friend level, which nets you a bunch of nice bonuses, such as trade discounts, damage bonuses, and extra Premier Balls when raiding with at least one of your friends. This has become especially useful during events and with the continued integration of Remote Raids into the game over the last year, since hosting a Remote Raid with multiple friends can help you earn massive amounts of XP.
Lately, players who have been participating in Raids with their friends have not been receiving notifications or Friendship XP. Specifically, players could still see their Friendship levels increasing, but they would not see a change in XP or get notifications about the feature.
Multiple players noted that they had been raiding with new and old friends of varying levels, with many saying they have lost out on as much as 800,000 XP because of this bug. Of those reports, most affected players submitted error tickets and were gifter Lucky Eggs in response, but many feel that it isn’t enough to justify the lost work put into grinding XP.
There are also some reports that this is a larger issue with notifications in general, with other players saying they aren’t receiving Raid or battle invites. Buddy Candy might also be affected, with some players noting that they are missing out on notifications, Candy, or sometimes both.
The known issue page on the Niantic website says that “Trainers may see a delayed notification after the effects of the Lucky Egg have run out, causing them to not obtain doubled experience for their Friendship level increases.” However, it seems like the issue runs deeper than this based on all of the coinciding notification issues.
Niantic is currently advising players to avoid using Lucky Eggs in reference to trying to boost Friendship XP until this issue is resolved.
