Discord error 4014: disallowed intents

What it means

When a bot connects, it lists the groups of events it wants: its intents. Three of them are privileged — Server Members, Presences and Message Content — and a bot may only request those if they are also switched on for it in the Developer Portal. Request one that is not, and Discord closes the connection immediately with code 4014.

It happens at login, before any of your code runs, which is why the bot never comes online at all rather than half-working.

Fix it in the Developer Portal

Open discord.com/developers/applications, choose your application, then Bot in the sidebar. Under Privileged Gateway Intents, switch on each intent your code requests and save. Start the bot again; there is nothing to wait for.

To see which ones your code requests, look for GuildMembers, GuildPresences or MessageContent in discord.js, or members, presences or message_content set to True in discord.py. Intents.all() in discord.py requests all three.

Or stop asking for it

Switching an intent on is only right if the bot uses it. A bot that answers slash commands needs none of the three: interactions arrive whatever intents are requested. Removing an intent you do not use also saves memory, because the library stops caching what it would have received.

const { Client, GatewayIntentBits } = require('discord.js');

// Enough for slash commands. Add MessageContent only if you read message text.
const client = new Client({ intents: [GatewayIntentBits.Guilds] });

import discord

# default() leaves out all three privileged intents.
intents = discord.Intents.default()
client = discord.Client(intents=intents)