Changed your Instagram password? Why your website feed may disconnect

The short answer

A website feed does not use your Instagram password. It uses an access token, a permission Instagram issued when you clicked “Connect”. Meta lists a changed password as one of the reasons such a permission stops working. When it does, the feed tool can no longer read your posts, and your website shows an empty feed.

The fix is to sign in with Instagram again from the feed tool, which creates a fresh token. In Social Feed, the dashboard gives you a “Reconnect Instagram account” button for this. Reconnecting the same account on top of the old connection keeps your widgets and embed codes, while disconnecting first deletes them. Both paths are described below, so read the whole “how to reconnect” part before you click anything.

Why a password change can end the connection

When you connect Instagram to a website tool, you sign in on Instagram’s own page and approve what the tool may do. Instagram then hands the tool a token. The tool never sees your password; it only stores the token and sends it with each request for your posts.

Tokens are tied to your login, not just to a date. Changing the password is a strong signal to Meta that the person behind the account wants to start fresh, so existing logins can be cancelled. Instagram’s help center says that after you update your password you are logged out of all other devices. A token held by a website tool is not a device, but Meta’s developer documentation treats a password change in the same spirit: it lists “Password Changed” as one of the reasons a request fails and the person has to log in to the app again.

From the tool’s side, the problem appears as an error on the next request for your posts. In Meta’s Graph API error reference, error code 190 means “Access token has expired”, and an extra subcode may say why. The ones relevant here:

You do not need to remember these numbers. They are useful in one way: they show that Meta itself treats a password change as a normal reason for a connection to end, and that the cure in every row is the same. Sign in again and grant access again. No feed tool can renew a cancelled token on your behalf, because the point of cancelling it is that only you can approve a new one.

Other security steps that have the same effect

A deliberate password change in settings is the most obvious cause, but several related situations end up in the same place:

1. Resetting a forgotten password. Using “Forgot password” on the login screen replaces the password just like a change does.
2. A security prompt from Instagram. If Instagram tells you your account is at risk and asks you to change the password, the new password has the same effect on connected tools.
3. A security check on the account. When Meta asks the account owner to confirm something before continuing (the “checkpoint” subcodes in the table), requests from connected tools can fail until the check is done in the Instagram app.
4. Removing the app from Instagram’s connected apps. Instagram’s settings list the apps and websites you have connected, with a “Remove” option. Removing Social Feed there ends its access. Instagram can also notify Social Feed of the removal; when that happens, Social Feed deletes that account’s connection together with its widget settings. Only remove it if you no longer want the feed.
5. Switching to a personal account. The API that website feeds use works only with professional accounts (Business or Creator). If the account is switched back to personal, the feed stops for a different reason. See Instagram professional accounts.

If several people share the Instagram account, one of them may have changed the password without telling the person who looks after the website. That is the most common way this problem catches a business by surprise.

How to tell whether your feed is affected

An empty feed has many possible causes, so confirm the connection before you start reconnecting. The quickest check is the live preview in the dashboard:

1. Sign in to Social Feed by grip space.
2. In the widget list, find the widget that is empty on your website and click “Settings & preview”.
3. Look at the preview. It reads your posts from Instagram with the same token that your website uses.

If the preview shows your posts, the connection is fine, and the password change is not the cause. Our article on an Instagram feed that is not showing on your website walks through the other causes, from an unpublished widget to a platform that strips scripts.

If the token has stopped working, the preview shows a red message instead of posts. That message is specific to this situation; an account that simply has no matching posts shows “No posts to show.” instead.

One thing that does not help here is the “Token expires” date on the account’s row. A token cancelled by a password change keeps its old date, because nothing about the date changed. The date can be weeks away while the token is already unusable. The preview is the reliable check.

What the dashboard says

When Instagram rejects the token, the preview area shows this message:

The message mentions the password change on purpose: it is the cause we see most. Below it is a “Reconnect Instagram account” button. Its instruction, reconnect without disconnecting, keeps everything you have set up. Disconnecting would also work, but it has a cost, explained next.

What visitors see in the meantime

An expired connection does not put an error message on your website. The feed simply has no posts to show. Depending on your settings, visitors may see the account header with no posts below it.

On the Free plan, posts shown on your site are refreshed once a day, and the last saved copy can stay visible for up to 24 hours. So on the Free plan a broken connection may first look like a feed that has stopped updating, and only later like an empty one. On paid plans, posts are read from Instagram each time the feed loads, so they disappear on the next load. If your feed is still visible but old, our article on an Instagram feed that is not updating may also apply.

Before you reconnect: what disconnecting deletes

In Social Feed, a connected Instagram account is the parent of its widgets. Each widget holds your layout, filters, header and button settings, its view counts, and the embed code on your pages. Disconnecting the account removes the parent, and everything under it goes too.

The dashboard warns you about this. When you click “Disconnect this account”, the confirmation asks: “Disconnect this account? All of its widgets and embed codes will also be deleted, and this cannot be undone. (If the connection has only expired, you can reconnect without disconnecting.)” After you confirm, the embed codes of those widgets stop working, and a new connection starts with one new widget, default settings, and a new embed code.

Do not confuse it with another button. Inside a widget’s settings screen there is a button labeled “Delete widget” that deletes only that one widget, not the Instagram connection. Pressing it will not refresh your token.

Path A: reconnect the same account and keep your widgets

You can sign in again without disconnecting first. When you click “Reconnect Instagram account” and sign in with the same Instagram account that is already connected, Social Feed recognizes the account and replaces its old token with the new one. Nothing else changes: your widgets, their settings, their view counts and their embed codes stay exactly as they are, and the feed on your website recovers by itself.

1. Sign in to Instagram in your browser with the new password, using the account the feed shows. If Instagram asks you to confirm your identity or complete a security check, do that first, ideally in the Instagram app.
2. Open “Settings & preview” for a widget of the account in Social Feed and click “Reconnect Instagram account” below the red message.
3. On Instagram’s page, check the account name before approving. It must be the same account that is already connected. If a different account is shown, switch accounts on Instagram first.
4. Approve the connection. You return to the dashboard and see “Instagram account connected.”
5. Open “Settings & preview” on your widget. Your posts should be back in the preview. Then reload the page on your website.

Path A works on every plan, including the Free plan when you have already used your one widget. The reconnect button renews the connection you already have instead of adding a new one, so your plan’s widget limit (1 on Free, 3 on Light, unlimited on Standard) does not get in the way. One reconnection fixes every widget of the account.

Path B: disconnect and connect again

You do not need this path to fix a password change; Path A does that. Path B is for starting over, for example when you want to show a different Instagram account anyway. You rebuild your widgets afterwards, so make a short record first, and the rebuild takes a few minutes.

1. Write down each widget’s settings. Open “Settings & preview” for every widget of the account and note the values in the table below. A screenshot of each settings screen is enough.
2. Note where each embed code is used. List the pages, templates or footer sections that contain the widget’s script tag. You will replace these codes.
3. Disconnect. On the account’s row in the widget list, click “Disconnect this account” and confirm.
4. Connect again. Click “+ Connect Instagram account”, sign in to Instagram with the new password and approve. A new widget with default settings appears.
5. Restore the settings from your notes and save. If you had several widgets and your plan allows more than one, create the others again.
6. Replace the embed codes on your website with the new ones, then publish or save the pages in your website builder. The old codes no longer show anything.

If you are unsure where your embed codes are, our platform guides show where the code usually goes on WordPress, Shopify, Wix, Squarespace, Webflow and plain HTML sites.

Path B resets view counts, because they belong to the deleted widgets. The new widgets start counting from zero.

Which path to choose

If you are planning a password change

Changing a password regularly, or right after a security warning, is a good habit. You do not need to avoid it because of your website. A little planning keeps the feed downtime to minutes:

1. Make your notes first. Record each widget’s settings and embed code locations as described in Path B, just in case.
2. Change the password on Instagram. Instagram’s help center describes the steps: in the app, the Password and security section of the settings, then Change password. Depending on your app version, these settings may appear in Accounts Center.
3. Check the preview in Social Feed soon after. If your posts still appear, there is nothing to do.
4. If the red message appears, reconnect right away with Path A or Path B.
5. Reload your website and check the feed. If your website or its host uses page caching, clear the cache so visitors get the current page.

Shared accounts, agencies and handovers

Only someone who can sign in to the Instagram account can reconnect it. That matters when the account and the website are looked after by different people.

1. Tell everyone who knows the password that changing it may empty the feed on the website, and who to tell when they do.
2. If an agency built the site, agree on who reconnects: the client signs in to Instagram during a short call, or the client follows Path A on their own with the steps from this article.
3. Keep two-factor authentication on. It protects the account and does not stop a website feed from working. When you reconnect, Instagram may ask for the code, so the person reconnecting needs access to it.
4. Do not remove Social Feed from Instagram’s connected apps as part of a security cleanup unless you want to stop the feed. Removing it can delete the connection and widget settings, as described above.

If reconnecting does not work

If none of this helps, email us at info@grip-space.co.jp with the @username of the account and what the preview shows. Never send us your Instagram password; we do not need it and will never ask for it.

Frequently asked questions

Does Social Feed store my Instagram password? No. You sign in on Instagram’s own page, and Social Feed receives only a token that allows reading your basic profile and posts. That is also why a password change cannot be passed on to Social Feed: there is nothing to update except the token, and only a new sign-in creates one.

Will my feed come back by itself after a while? No. A cancelled token stays cancelled. The feed returns only after you reconnect.

I changed my password and the feed still works. Is something wrong? No. Not every password change ends existing connections. If the preview shows your posts, the connection is valid.

Do I need to change my embed code after reconnecting? With Path A, no. With Path B, yes, because the widgets are created again with new codes.

Does changing my Instagram username cause the same problem? No. The connection follows the account, not its name. A few details still need attention, which our article on changing your Instagram username explains.

Is this the same as the 60-day token expiry? It ends the same way, but the cause is different. Long-lived tokens last 60 days and Social Feed renews them automatically, so the date rarely matters. A password change cancels a token early, which no renewal can prevent. Our article on an Instagram access token that expired covers the date-based side.

Related reading

To understand what you approve when you connect, read Instagram API with Instagram Login, explained. If you need to take the feed off your site for a while instead, see hiding your Instagram feed temporarily. New to Social Feed? Learn what Social Feed by grip space is, compare plans and pricing, or sign up for free.

Sources

1. Meta for Developers, Graph API “Error Handling”: https://developers.facebook.com/docs/graph-api/guides/error-handling/
2. Instagram Help Center, “How to change and update your Instagram password”: https://help.instagram.com/129844100551729/
3. Instagram Help Center, “Why Instagram tells you your account is at risk”: https://help.instagram.com/273359857992105
4. Instagram Help Center, “Recover your Instagram password”: https://help.instagram.com/409847499070242/
5. Instagram Help Center, “Manage the privacy settings for apps and websites that you’ve logged into or connected on Instagram”: https://help.instagram.com/1144624522593085
6. Meta for Developers, “Refresh Access Token”: https://developers.facebook.com/docs/instagram-platform/reference/refresh_access_token/