How-to Kite alerts alert not triggered missed tick LTP alert troubleshooting price alert

How to fix a Kite alert that did not trigger

From WebNotes, a public knowledge base. Last updated 21 June 2026. Reading time ~11 min. Level: Beginner.

Key facts

How an alert evaluates	On the recorded last traded price (LTP) ticks; if the trigger tick is not captured, the alert may not fire
Most common cause	A missed tick: the price touched the level momentarily but the tick was not recorded (Zerodha support, June 2026)
Exchange mismatch	An alert set on NSE evaluates NSE LTP; the price you watched may be the BSE LTP, which can differ
Pending behaviour	A missed-tick alert stays pending and can still fire the next time the price genuinely reaches the level
Other causes	The alert was disabled, expired, or set on an instrument that changed; check it is still enabled
Where to verify	The Alerts section at kite.zerodha.com/orders/alerts shows whether the alert is enabled, pending, or fired

Procedure

Confirm the alert is still enabledOpen the Alerts section under Orders, or kite.zerodha.com/orders/alerts on web. Check the alert is enabled and pending, not disabled. A disabled alert does not fire, and an auto-disable from a corporate action or expiry is a common reason it went silent.
Check the alert is on the exchange you watchedAn alert set on the NSE listing evaluates the NSE LTP; if you watched the BSE price, the two LTPs can differ and the level may not have been met on the exchange the alert is on. Confirm the alert’s exchange matches the feed you compared against.
Verify the condition and the LTP actually crossedAlerts evaluate on the last traded price, not the bid or ask. Confirm an actual trade printed at or through your level on the alert’s exchange. If the price only showed in the order book without a trade, the LTP never reached it.
Account for a missed tickIf the LTP did momentarily reach the level but the alert did not fire, the trigger tick was likely not captured. The alert stays pending and can fire the next time the price genuinely reaches the level. This is the documented behaviour for a missed tick.
Rule out expiry, corporate action, or instrument changeA 365-day validity lapse, a corporate action over 2 per cent, a derivative expiry, a delisting or series change all auto-disable the alert. If any applies, the alert was disabled before your level was reached, so it could not fire.
Re-enable, adjust, or raise a ticketRe-enable a disabled alert, or recreate it on the correct exchange or contract. If you have confirmed the alert was enabled, valid, on the right exchange, and the LTP clearly crossed the level yet it still did not fire, raise a support ticket so Zerodha can investigate the specific instance.

A Kite alert evaluates on the recorded last traded price, and the most common reason one does not fire even though the price appeared to hit your level is a missed tick: the LTP momentarily reached the level, but that tick was not captured, so the alert stayed pending. Before you conclude that, though, three cheaper explanations need ruling out: the alert was disabled and never monitoring, the alert was on a different exchange than the price you watched, or no trade actually printed at your level. This guide works through them in the order worth checking, from most common and easiest to confirm to the genuine missed-tick case that only Zerodha can investigate.

The core fact to hold is how the alert evaluates. It fires on the last traded price, the price of actual executed trades, not on the bid or ask in the order book, and it fires tick by tick. Both of those shape every failure mode below. This is the diagnostic companion to the alerts-disabled fix and the notifications reference; a fired alert that you simply did not see is a notification problem, not a trigger problem, and is covered there.

Conflict-of-interest disclosure. This guide is published by the WebNotes Editorial Team for informational purposes and is written independently. WebNotes operates a Zerodha account-opening referral programme, disclosed on the pages that carry the referral link; this guide does not carry it and earns no referral commission from the procedure described here.

How a Kite alert decides to fire

A Kite alert watches a single data point against a single level, and most alerts watch the last traded price. The LTP is the price of the most recent actual trade on the exchange, updated tick by tick as trades print. The alert fires when a recorded tick satisfies the condition, for example an LTP tick greater than or equal to your level. Two properties of that mechanism explain almost every “it didn’t fire” case.

First, it is LTP, not the quote. The bid and ask in the order book can sit at your level without a single trade printing there. If no trade executes at or through the level, the LTP never reaches it, and the alert correctly does not fire even though the order book showed the price.

Second, it is tick-driven. The exchange disseminates trades as a stream of ticks, and at high transaction rates a tick can be skipped in the feed. If the one tick that would have satisfied your condition is the one that was not captured, the alert does not fire, even though a trade did print at the level. This is the missed-tick case, and Zerodha documents it as the reason an alert “may not be triggered if the tick is not captured.”

Step-by-step diagnosis

The infobox at the top gives the sequence. Work through it in order; the early checks are cheap and rule out the common, non-missed-tick causes before you reach for the one only support can confirm.

1. Confirm the alert is still enabled

Open the Alerts section: Orders, then Alerts on web or app, or kite.zerodha.com/orders/alerts. Check the alert is enabled and still pending, not disabled. A disabled alert does not monitor, so it cannot fire. Auto-disables from a corporate action, a derivative expiry, a delisting or series change, or the 365-day validity lapse are a frequent reason an alert “stopped working”; the alerts-disabled guide covers each. If the alert is disabled, that is your answer: it was off when the price reached your level.

2. Check the alert is on the exchange you watched

A stock listed on both exchanges has two separate LTPs, one on NSE and one on BSE, and they can differ at any instant. An alert set on the NSE listing evaluates the NSE LTP; an alert on the BSE listing evaluates the BSE LTP. If you set the alert on one exchange but watched the price on the other, the level may genuinely not have been met on the exchange the alert monitors. Confirm the alert’s exchange matches the price feed you compared against. This mismatch is a real and underappreciated cause, especially for stocks where one exchange leads the other intraday.

3. Verify the condition and that the LTP actually crossed

Open the chart for the same instrument and the same exchange the alert is on. Confirm an actual trade printed at or through your level. A wick on the chart represents traded prices, so if the chart shows the price reaching your level on the alert’s exchange, a trade did print there. If the chart never reached the level on that exchange, the LTP never satisfied the condition and the alert was right not to fire. Also re-read your own condition: a greater-than condition does not fire on an equal touch, and an operator or a stray digit set wrong is a common self-inflicted miss.

4. Account for a missed tick

If you have confirmed the alert was enabled, on the right exchange, and the LTP did reach your level on that exchange, yet it still did not fire, the trigger tick was most likely not captured. Zerodha’s worked example: a stock at 105 with an alert set for 100 momentarily reaches 100, but the tick is not recorded, so the alert does not fire. The alert is not consumed by this. It stays pending and can fire the next time the LTP genuinely reaches the level, so you do not need to recreate it unless it was disabled for a separate reason.

5. Rule out expiry, corporate action, or instrument change

If the alert is on an F&O contract, check the contract had not expired before your level was reached; an expired-contract alert is auto-disabled and cannot fire. Check the underlying stock did not go ex-bonus, ex-split, ex-rights, or pay an extraordinary dividend, any of which moves the price over 2 per cent and disables the alert. A delisting, suspension, or series change does the same. In each of these the alert was disabled before the move you expected, so it had no chance to fire.

6. Re-enable, adjust, or raise a ticket

Re-enable a disabled alert once you have confirmed the level still makes sense, or recreate it on the correct exchange or the live contract. If you have ruled out every other cause, the alert was enabled, valid, on the right exchange, and the chart shows a trade clearly printed through your level on that exchange, then a missed tick is the most likely explanation, and only Zerodha can confirm it for a specific instance. Raise a support ticket with the instrument, exchange, level, and time so they can investigate. Do not keep recreating the alert blindly; diagnose first.

When it is a notification problem, not a trigger problem

A frequent confusion is an alert that did fire but did not notify you. If the Alerts section shows the alert has moved out of the active, pending set, it triggered; you simply did not see the notification, because alerts fire on Zerodha’s servers regardless of whether your device received the push. That is a delivery problem, fixed by enabling push or browser notifications, and is covered in the notifications reference. The diagnosis here is for the opposite case: the alert is still pending in the Alerts section and genuinely did not fire.

What can go wrong

The alert was disabled and you did not know. A corporate action over 2 per cent, a derivative expiry, a delisting, or the 365-day lapse auto-disables it, and a disabled alert cannot fire. Check the enabled state first and watch for the disable email.
You compared the wrong exchange. An NSE alert evaluates NSE LTP; if you watched the BSE price, the level may not have been met on the alert’s exchange. Match the alert’s exchange to your price feed.
No trade printed at your level. Alerts fire on LTP, not the bid or ask. A level that showed only as a quote, with no execution, never moved the LTP, so the alert correctly did not fire.
Your operator or level was set wrong. A greater-than does not fire on an equal touch, and a typo in the level is easy to make. Re-read the exact condition before blaming the system.
It was a genuine missed tick. The LTP touched the level but the tick was not captured. The alert stays pending and can fire next time. If you are certain it should have fired, raise a ticket rather than recreate it repeatedly.
The alert fired and you missed the notification. If the Alerts section shows it left the pending set, it triggered; this is a notification-delivery issue, not a trigger failure.

External references

References

Zerodha support, Why is a Kite alert not triggered even though conditions met? (LTP tick evaluation, missed-tick example at 105 with a 100 alert, pending behaviour, raise a ticket; as of 21 June 2026).
Zerodha support, Why are Kite alerts disabled? (corporate action over 2 per cent, derivative expiry, delisting or series change, 365-day validity; as of 21 June 2026).
Zerodha support, What are Kite alerts and how do I use them? (alert evaluates on recorded LTP, Alerts section, enabled state; as of 21 June 2026).

Frequently asked questions

Why didn't my Kite alert trigger even though the price hit my level?

The most common reason is a missed tick: the last traded price momentarily reached your level, but that tick was not recorded in the system, so the alert did not fire. The alert stays pending and can fire the next time the price genuinely reaches the level.

Does a Kite alert evaluate on LTP or on the bid and ask?

Kite alerts evaluate on the recorded last traded price, the price of actual trades, not the bid or ask in the order book. If your level showed only as a quote without a trade printing at it, the LTP never reached the level and the alert did not fire.

Why did my alert miss the price when the stock clearly touched it?

Alerts fire on recorded ticks, and with many transactions per second a tick can be skipped. If the trigger tick is the one that was missed, the alert does not fire even though the price touched the level. The alert remains pending for the next genuine touch.

Could an exchange mismatch be why my alert did not fire?

Yes. An alert set on the NSE listing evaluates the NSE LTP, and an alert on the BSE listing evaluates the BSE LTP. The two can differ, so if you watched one exchange’s price but set the alert on the other, the level may not have been met on the alert’s exchange.

What should I do if the alert clearly should have fired but didn't?

First confirm the alert was enabled, on the right exchange, and that an actual trade printed through your level. If all of that holds and it still did not fire, it is most likely a missed tick. If you are certain, raise a Zerodha support ticket so they can investigate that instance.

Does a pending alert that missed a tick still work later?

Yes. A missed-tick alert is not consumed; it stays pending and will fire the next time the last traded price genuinely reaches the trigger level. You do not have to recreate it unless it was disabled for a separate reason such as expiry or a corporate action.

Can a disabled alert be the reason it never fired?

Yes, and it is easy to miss. A corporate action over 2 per cent, a derivative expiry, a delisting or series change, or the 365-day validity lapse all auto-disable an alert. A disabled alert does not monitor, so it cannot fire. Kite emails you when an alert is disabled.

Reviewed and published by

WebNotes Editorial Team

The WebNotes Editorial Team covers Indian capital markets, payments infrastructure and retail investor procedures. Every article is fact-checked against primary sources, principally SEBI circulars and master directions, NPCI specifications and the official support documentation published by the intermediary in question. Drafts go through a second-pair-of-eyes review and a separate compliance read before publication, and revisions are tracked against the SEBI and NPCI rule changes referenced in the methodology section.

Last reviewed: 21 June 2026
Conflicts of interest: WebNotes is independent. No relationship with any broker, registrar or bank named in this article.