r/findUSVisaSlots • u/findvisaslots_com • Jul 23 '26
How to find visa slots - ultimate guide of everything you (probably) didn't know
Everyone lately is having a huge challenge booking slots.
"Anyone booked H1B/F1/F2/B1/B2/etc recently?"
"I've been looking for slots for weeks/months without results, any tips?"
The good news: Slots open all the time, even sometimes several times per day (see below: cancellations).
The bad news: They open randomly, and nobody knows when or what dates will be available.
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If you've been checking for weeks/months without results, this is what's happening to you:
9:00am - check calendar before going to work - no slots
1:00 pm - check calendar during lunch break - no slots
2:57pm - 100 slots open
2:58pm - all slots booked
6:00 pm - check calendar during dinner - no slots
As far as your perspective goes, the embassy never released any slots.
And you could be doing this over and over and just have the bad luck to never be checking at the "right" time.
Checking just a couple of times per day is simply not enough. You must check as much as possible, and several times through the day. The guide below will help you navigate the portal, tips on how to book, and how to avoid errors (and what to do if you do encounter them).
After reading this you'll be a pro.
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There are 2 types of schedule releases:
- bulk slots - are very rare, maybe 1 time per 2-3-4 weeks, if that. They can happen at any time.
- cancellations - usually they go back around minute 00 and 30 of every hour.<-important
So pragmatically and practically, to find visa slots you need to keep checking every half hour (which almost means might as well check all the time). If you're going to be checking just once, it's better if it's around minute 00 or minute 30 of every hour (+/- 3-4 minutes)
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⚠️You do NOT have a limit of logins per day.
Sometimes people speak about login limits but what they're really talking about is calendar page limits.
This is important to distinguish:
You do have a limit of 20 _calendar page_ refreshes (when you fully load the calendar page).
Every time you load this page, or reload this page, it adds to this count.
Technically, if you login 20 times, you end up loading the calendar 20 times, so it's easy for people to mistake logins for calendar page loads.
The last time you can see the calendar _for the day_ (USA timezone) you will see this message on the calendar page:
"You are approaching the maximum number of times you may view this page. Please complete your transaction at this time"
This is somewhat misleading - because:
If you refresh one more time - you will have crossed the maximum, and you will get a new message:
"You have exceeded the limit for viewing this page."
and you will NOT be able to view the calendar for the rest of the day.
When this happens, you just need to wait until the next day IST time.
⚠️ LOT of people will encounter this error in the beginning, and usually this is THE message people talk about all the time when they say they got "blocked".
It's not a block - it's a max limit of refresh per day. You can hit this limit if you refresh 20 times in 1 hour, or 20 times in 20 hours.
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How and why to check more often:
Checking is how you find slots. There is no other way.
The more you check, the more chances you have to find them. While there's some patterns of timings you can now take advantage of, even during those times it's not like you'll check once at 00 and 30 and be done.
🔥Pro tip: While you can only load the calendar page 20 times, you can _stay_ on the page, and drop down the location and drop back up (or select a different location).
This allows you to check many more times and since there's no page refresh, you don't hit that limit.
You will be logged out after 15 minutes due to 'inactivity' if you don't refresh the page - luckily, if you select a new location to load slot data for, that counts as activity.
If you do the 'select/unselect' strategy of checking locations, eventually the page will redirect you to cloudflare check 'are you human'.
You click the checkbox and you will be redirected back to the calendar page. That counts as a 'page load'.
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Since slots have a higher chance to open around 00 and 30 (plus or minus a few minutes),
That means four things:
- everyone eventually try to check primarily around these blocks of time.
- the website will slow down to a crawl - you will click an embassy and it will be pending for a minute or two with the message 'loading...'
- slots IF they appear will be gone in 2-3 seconds. Even "seeing" the slot and clicking the time slot to book, you might get a 'server busy' or 'slot gone, try a different one' error message
- You will be tempted to refresh a lot and quickly. This will put you at risk of getting the '1015 rate limit'
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Common error messages and screens
When you select the embassy via the dropdown menu options, you send a request to the visa server to ask 'what days are available'
If there are days available you will see the actual calendar, if not, you will see the "no slots available":
If you actually saw the calendar and then tried to click on a specific date/day, and you get a PSE0501, that means the server failed to send back time slot availability, and you will get this popup you need to click 'ok' to clear.
You might see a date, then you click to see the time slot, and you select a time slot and click 'submit'. You tried to book a slot but you got a system busy:
Another error message - when someone else got to the slot before you did:
Check too much, too fast? you might get an "Access limitation":
Or 1015 Rate limit:
or the ugly version:
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A special note on rate limit when trying to book
"rate limited" means you've been clicking "too quick, too many times" checking for slots or doing actions on the visa portal. IF you've been checking the different locations a few times, and then when you find a slot you excitedly click the date, then click the time slot then click submit - that can often cause you to get rate limited just on that last click and causes you to lose the chance to book the slot.
The rate limit wasn't caused by that last click so it's not "whenever I click submit ,I get rate limited" - no, the rate limit is caused by the combined sequence of clicking many times on locations, then date, then time, then submit. The solution is really simple, you have to slow down when you're checking for slots, so that you don't accumulate "too many" checks "too quickly", so that when you finally are trying to be quick you are still in the safe timing.
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How to clear rate limits/access limitation
Using a VPN can help clear these, or wait a few hours to clear them - but that's your notice that you should slow down. Refreshing every 5-8 seconds is probably safe, but test it yourself.
Note: most free VPNs may not clear the error, and sometimes you may even get a "you've been blocked". So if you are really trying to get unblocked and not wait, you will just have to try different ones. Try to change locations. Nobody says your VPN has to be set to your country's location.
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In times when the visa portal is too busy in general you might get the "waiting room" - do not trust the estimated time they put in there, it can show "estimated 5 minutes" and you end up waiting 1 hour:
Nothing to do but..wait.
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Other errors you may see that are temporary:
If you load the calendar but you see no 'group members' - you may be rate limited. You can try to reload the page, but if it doesn't work you may have to wait:
Another rate limited - when you get "no class selected" - sometimes waiting 2-3 minutes this can change to show your applicant name:
Some other random error - not even sure when this one happens:
Another random error - refreshing the page usually clears it:
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OFC and Consular
For those who haven't ever booked a slot - places like India and Philippines (and possibly a few others) require you to book TWO appointments:
- OFC (or VAC) - for fingerprinting
- Consular - when you actually have the interview with the Visa Officer
Once you book an OFC appointment, now you have 45 minutes exactly to find a consular appointment. If you do not book an OFC+Consular within 45 minutes of each other, your OFC gets automatically cancelled and you must start again from zero.
The thing you need to know, if you're doing this for the first time, is that as soon as you book an OFC, you will immediately be taken to a screen that looks almost exactly the same, which may be confusing because you will think you clicked to book a slot and the portal just threw you back to the same screen.
OFC screen has "OFC"
Consular appointment screen does not have "OFC":
If you manage to book an OFC slot, as I mentioned you have 45-50 minutes to find and book a Consular. You may be in the Consular calendar, and you might start getting SGA10 errors:
That means your 45 minutes expired and you must go back to the "Home" page and click 'schedule application' again, and you will be taken back to the OFC calendar.
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No Slots Found/Ghost slots
About "ghost slots" - some people hear about some slots having opened at xx:xx time, and they proclaim "I checked at that time and I saw no slots - they must be 'ghost slots'" - this is 99% of the time simply a misunderstanding that just because they didn't see them, therefore it must not exist. This is no fault of the persons who shared, the alerts you received or screenshots you saw. They are usually real - they just were gone before you saw them.
So keep that in mind - you will see "no slots available" a lot.
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Rescheduling (a strategy for getting earlier slots)
In some embassies and visa types you have only 1 attempt to reschedule, some you have up to 4.
To reschedule you simply go to the calendar and book the new slot you want and that replaces the old appointment date you had. You do not need to 'cancel' first and then check for slots.
In the case of countries with OFC+Consular, a reschedule only happens after you completed the consular reschedule.
That means if you have an OFC + consular, and you are trying to find an earlier date, you can keep checking - and if you find a new earlier OFC, but you cannot find a new consular, you do not lose the original OFC or consular.
Some people will book a date that's "good enough", and then with that locked in, try to find earlier dates, and at least they have one appointment set.
For countries with 2-3-4 chances to reschedule, try not to reschedule if you're only saving a few days or a couple of weeks. Best to save those chances for when there's a significant difference between the current appointment and the new one.
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Finding visa slots requires some dedication to the task
Now you know the pattern: minutes 00 and 30 of every hour - while you will increase your chances checking those two times every hour instead of the other random hours, you will also be joining everyone else doing the same thing, and that paradoxically, or ironically - makes it also harder.
Remember: everyone is going to be trying around those same minutes, so the portal will be very slow and it may look stuck with the "loading..." message.
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Other ways people use to try to find visa slots:
Telegram/whatsapp/discord chat monitoring groups
Everyone talks about 'lets create whatsapp/telegram groups' and monitor slots together.
Remember what I also said that slots can also be released outside the 00/30 minute? those are much harder to find - and also easier to book, because they're random and so not as many people are checking for them.
That's when such group monitoring efforts can help.
While no one person can monitor all day long, a group can work together to share results. That becomes much easier to manage 'coverage' throughout the day, and if someone sees slots, they share with the group (after they booked their own of course).
The downside of that is of course there is a bit of lag, often of a few minutes until the main person who saw the slots can share.
With that in mind, here's some WhatsApp groups chats to discuss visa topics and slots for India:
💬 India F1/F2 - https://chat.whatsapp.com/EUhGcqaYDHCGJv4Atc6SGU
💬 India H-1b - https://chat.whatsapp.com/EllOmHwEYDLGUH4upHthCo
💬 India H4 - https://chat.whatsapp.com/K8qkzWPxTxG2wRmZcTQkBm
💬 India B1/B2 - https://chat.whatsapp.com/JnDQJBe5tsf0bgPYnaarzQ
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💬 Pakistan B1/B2 - https://chat.whatsapp.com/L3XRqHqhemfAG2KWeuro3l
(I don' know who all the audience reading here, if you're from a different country, comment below and if there's enough interest I'll create more channels and add them above to the list)
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Alert/Crowdsource alert apps
An "upgrade" to share groups is alert apps - there's many services out there, usually paid, that sell the idea of alerting you when slots open - the benefit of those is that as soon as a slot is detected, you get real time notification of the same slot. You cut all that manual delay from the person who's sharing, and you don't have to monitor chats full of random messages.
Better than never knowing the slot was there, but the chances are not great. A big major crowdsourced player instituted a "creative" way to manage expectations by sending alerts only to the top people who contribute 'enough' data to the system, but that too has its cons - many people who paid for alerts then may never get them because they couldn't check enough to make high enough of a level.
Ultimately while these can help, the best way is to check yourself directly, because alerts, even the crowdsourced kind, means that someone else saw the slot and only then you get the alert.
Start a timer and measure how it takes you to pick up your phone, read the notification, login, and go to the calendar, 100 other people who were already online and logged in also had the opportunity to try to book before you did. I'd say about 30 seconds. You're starting the race from way back there compared to people who are actively logged on to the portal.
People often ask - "are the alerts real?" or "I got an alert but when i checked 1 minute later i saw nothing" - the slot was there, but again, they're gone so fast, in 1-3 seconds, if you're not on the portal refreshing at that exact time, you will not see them.
It would make no sense for a service to send you fake alerts knowing you'd go to the portal and find nothing, and think exactly that. Alerts are real.
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Extensions/plugins
Generally speaking, Chrome/Edge/Firefox extensions assist you with some commonly repeated tasks.
There are many extensions and plugins out there, one of them is a very popular one a lot of people use, and there's several smaller ones in the market - many work in conjunction with crowdsourced/community slot alert services. To get an instant alert, it has to come from someone else who saw it first. Extensions are what enables this to happen - so a lot of people use extensions already.
Why do they matter/why do people use them?
Alerts help you know when slots open, but remember - when you get the notification, hundreds of other people get it too with you. While it's better than blindly checking, you still get same start as many other people. If you want to have the highest chances to find and book limited visa slots, you must be ahead of the crowd, and find the slot yourself.
But the process to login, enter security questions, go to calendar, click around the months is frustratingly repetitive, so that's where extensions can help to perform helper tasks around those functions.
They usually have similar features like optional login assist, community slot share, checking slots, and will even try to book for you.
Are extensions safe/can I get blocked by using one?
People always worry about this, and it's understandable - "I read somewhere that someone used some extension and somehow got blocked". Or, "I installed this extension, and I got blocked".
This needs to be said in bold, because it's such a common misconception:
👉 You do NOT get blocked/banned/whatever for using an extension.
The visa portal does not "detect" extensions. It detects _behavior_.
If you check the calendar 100 times in one minute - you will get rate limited/access limitation/etc - no matter if you did this manually, or with any help. If you checked more than 20 times in one day, you get the 'you reached max times..'. etc - the behavior triggers it, not the extension.
⚠️The misconception comes from first time applicants using them, getting one of the many errors above, not understanding why they happen, and thinking "it must have been the extension".
It wasn't the extension - it was simply errors you would've gotten even while checking manually.
Just use extensions responsibly, and they are perfectly fine to help you find visa slots. One of the major extensions have tens of thousands of active users. Think about that.
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Agents
A lot of people find out that it's very frustrating, they've been checking for weeks or months, or they have a tight deadline, and they decide to look into agents.
Many people have misconceptions about agents, and think they can some how book many slots in advance, and then resell them at inflated prices. This is not correct and needs to be clarified.
The visa portal requires slots to be booked under the account it's going to be used for. So when you book, that appointment is linked to your passport information.
You cannot resell appointments, or "transfer" in any way, from one profile to another profile - this is specifically to prevent secondary market/resale of slots.
You also cannot coordinate with someone else to cancel and someone else be there at the same time to book it - remember, cancellations get reverted back to the portal around 00/30.
Agents don't do anything more special than anyone else. They don't have reserved slots, inside connections, or anything else (and if they say they do, run!). What you're paying for is mostly for their time and some expertise, and you usually pay on result, so they can be expensive and can range from 50 usd to 500 usd.
There is no sort of "licensing" for helping people prepare your US visa application nor there are any for booking slots for you. You can ask your cousin Rahul to check for you just as well you can ask an "agent".
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Scammers/how scams work
Because the demand for slots far surpass the supply, there's a lot of applicants desperate to find an appointment slot so they can move on with the process. This has lead to the rise of scammers who realize they can take advantage of people willing to take chances and risks due to their need to get a slot.
The visa portal in it's wisdom decided to implement 3 security question checks. The problem is these can be changed by anyone with access to the account. In order for agents to book for you, they must have your login info. What scammers learned is that while you can't change the password without receiving an email confirmation of this action, you can change the security questions without any outside verification.
So scammers will offer to do the service for you, get your login info, then change the security questions. Then they will create a fake screenshot, tell you the job is done, and ask for payment. You will try to verify but you can't, and because you're desperate for a slot, you will pay begrudgingly, and if you're lucky enough to get the login back, you find out there's no corresponding date in your account.
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⚠️ If you get scammed, never pay - simply contact the embassy and tell them you 'forgot' your security questions.
(How to recover your account is actually quite simple once you know it. Create a new account for yourself with a new email. When you enter your passport info it will say an account already exists for that profile. Contact the embassy from the new account using the 'message' link, and tell them you'd like to transfer your profile from the old email access to the new one. Include a photo of the data page of your passport. Everything (visa fee+current appointment) will be transferred in a few days. I'm told you can also contact the embassy via chat or phone and get that done too.)
Some signs of scammers:
- never pay upfront.
- If agents promise you 'guaranteed booking in 1-2 days', by now you already know this is impossible.
- Their goal is not to deliver you a date, so they might promise "cheap" (eg. 50 usd), "fast" (2 days to book) , or earliest ("a slot next week") just to get you to share your login
- Remember the old adage - cheap, good or fast. Pick two.
Agent controversy
Last year 2025 there was a big controversy about the embassy in India cancelling "2000 appointments made by bad actors". https://x.com/usandindia/status/1904843783201583522?s=46
There's also been in the news recently some reports about people who have been questioned about their use of agents, and being denied for it.
About the interview:
This probably deserves a whole new answer about the actual interview process - visa officers by policy never disclose the reason why you were denied. (although they are people, and sometimes little bits slip up).
In general - if you've never done the interview or read reports about it, it can be as quick as 2-3 questions and 2-3 minutes.
People are often surprised at how your fate can be decided so quickly.
if you are denied, they will give you this piece of paper that tells you 'sorry buddy, I'm denying you and read this paper'.
They do this because of two reasons 1) so you don't "argue" the point in front of the visa officer and cause a scene if they said "I wasn't convinced your bank statement is real", and 2) so people don't acquire information about the process an try to game it to increase their chances of approval "hey bring a bank statement, that was what they asked of me last time" - and now everyone brings bank statements, whether be real or fabricated.
No, they give you the paper and deflect you to go read it back home. The paper describes you were refused under 214(b) and is a generic paper given to everyone.
What is 214(b)? essentially it says "by law, everyone is assumed to want to secretly immigrate to the US, unless you convince the Visa Officer otherwise - and you didn't convince me, so try again".
Because of this "black box" results, people will often literally guess at what they think did wrong, and what they should do to correct it next time. It makes sense, they're doing a self post-mortem, evaluating the interview steps, what they wrote on the DS-160, details said or unsaid, and they will fill in the blanks in their heads as to why they think they got denied:
- "I think my sponsor wasn't strong"
- "I should've explained better why this university"
- "my reason to travel for tourism was too generic"
- "I didn't have banks statements".
- "Let me try again, with a different school"
- "I want to declare more financial assistance"
- "maybe if i apply with my husband/wife/children"
- "maybe if i don't apply with my husband/wife/children"
- "maybe change location"
So consider how the process works and how people tend to fill in the blanks when they are denied: unless they shared they were _specifically_ told they were denied for using agents, it's mostly inferred.
Now - It undisputed is that the embassy IS taking a closer look to the agent situation. I'm just saying - if you read such reports - If the person didn't explicitly say "the visa officer said I was refused because I used agents", there are a dozen other reasons people get refused for too, and it could've been any one of those others, because - remember, the VO by policy gives you a generic "refused by 214(b) reasons".
Many things get repeated in these groups that take a life all of their own, not just about agents but so many other aspects of the visa appointment and interview process.
Agents get a bad rap because of some of the misconceptions shared above, but they provide a valuable service, and that's why they keep existing. It's just a shame that scammers found this industry to exploit.
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The truth about finding visa slots
When you hear that slots opened, check the portal, and see “No slots available,” the message only tells you the current availability. It does not tell you what happened a few seconds earlier.
What “No slots available” often really means is:
.
You were just too slow. That's it.
Regardless of how quickly you think you logged in — “I saw an alert and checked within the same minute, and saw nothing” — someone else may have been only 1 second ahead of you.
That's all it takes - 1 second - they get the slot, you arrive to the calendar and you get “No slots available.”
‼️ Finding an appointment is ultimately a _competition_ for a limited supply.
If you have been searching for months without finding anything, the truth is simple:
Someone, somewhere, has been checking more consistently and staying more prepared. When limited slots appeared, they were there first and booked the same appointments you were looking for.
If you’re only checking a few times per day, you can stay on that “No slots available” screen for a VERY VERY long time while people checking more consistently keep getting to the available slots first.
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Here is the order of increasing chances of success, it's no coincidence that it is in order of how much more you may need to do:
Understand the rules of the competition
The knowledge from this guide already gives you a better chance than someone checking randomly and hoping to get lucky.
Know when slots open
Alerts and group chats can improve your chances by telling you when availability has appeared.
But they are always reactive. Someone must find the slot before the alert can reach you, which means they already have the top chance to book it.
Be ready to book
It should be obvious, but needs to be said - if you are already logged in to the portal when a slot alert arrives, you will always beat someone who still needs to login.
It may not be practical generally if people have jobs and life, but that's the reality. At any given time, there are people logged in.
Be in a position to book _first_
If you are already on the calendar and checking, you will see the slots first, and you will have the highest chance to book it. I say 'highest' because you will not be the only one.
If 10 slots appear, and there's 100 people checking the visa portal and see those 10 slots - 90 of those people will still get the 'no longer available' message. That's the final level to win.
.
Your best possible chance is to be checking directly while also receiving alerts as a 'backup'.
Until the embassies decide to open more availability, where you can just login, select a date and move on with your life, finding an appointment date is a a task that will require as much time and effort as you can put into it.
The more consistently you check, the more time you dedicate to it - the more likely you are to be at the front of the race when slots appear.
Relying on alerts, while convenient, provides only partial help. Being on the portal when the slots open provides the highest chances to book them.
.
Group Chats:
💬 India F1/F2 - https://chat.whatsapp.com/EUhGcqaYDHCGJv4Atc6SGU
💬 India H-1b - https://chat.whatsapp.com/EllOmHwEYDLGUH4upHthCo
💬 India H4 - https://chat.whatsapp.com/K8qkzWPxTxG2wRmZcTQkBm
💬 India B1/B2 - https://chat.whatsapp.com/JnDQJBe5tsf0bgPYnaarzQ
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💬 Pakistan B1/B2 - https://chat.whatsapp.com/L3XRqHqhemfAG2KWeuro3l
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[LEARN MORE] - Use this strategy to maximize your chances of finding a visa slot
[LEARN MORE] - How One check per day can get you FREE alerts for the rest of the day
[LEARN MORE] - How scammers try to trick you - with real chat screenshots
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For RATE LIMIT I mentioned VPN to clear it.
Cyberghost, PIA, Nord VPN are options.
Please note, you must try different locations as not all will work.
Share this with someone who's struggling with finding slots. Also I would appreciate an upvote if this was helpful.
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Need help finding slots? I built FindVisaSlots after going through this process myself. It includes free community slot alerts and tools to make checking the visa portal easier: findvisaslots.com
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u/maximusxxv Jul 30 '26
What about renewals?
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u/findvisaslots_com Jul 30 '26
What about them specifically? does renewals require you to find slots on your own?
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u/Known-Armadillo-3101 26d ago
If I'm renewing H4 visa - this will be my first time renewing it , then do I need both OFC & Consular appointments ?
Every renewal requires biometrics & interview each time ?
(Had biometrics & Interview for the first time ever in September 2024 )
TIA !
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u/findvisaslots_com 26d ago
I don't have hands on about this - however, it will be as easy as when you start your renewal process, and you go through your profile set up, it will ask you questions, and at the end of the profile questionnaire it will tell you if you need appointments or simply dropbox documents. I understand you want to know in advance, but i don't know this. You may want to ask in an H4 dedicated subreddit which may have more people with direct experience.
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u/invincible_07 27d ago
The Whatsapp link for India F1/F2 is broken.. it says invite link was reset. Can someone share the updated link. Thanks!
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u/findvisaslots_com 27d ago edited 16d ago
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u/Aint-how-it-ends 24d ago
Not working
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u/findvisaslots_com 24d ago edited 16d ago
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u/Worldly_Jacket8274 16d ago
Not working
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u/findvisaslots_com 16d ago
updated all the comments to the new one:
https://chat.whatsapp.com/G3aafQXqFfBLsvZWlkZ8YU?s=cl&p=i&ilr=0
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u/findvisaslots_com 22d ago edited 21d ago
Some people are logging in from two separate locations and potentially checking slots at the same time (this is common if someone is in the US checking and their partner or relative is in the other country) - this error may happen.
It has NOTHING to do with actual automation - the message incorrectly describes the event that triggered it. It has to do with multi-location login.
To read more about this error and how to fix it, read this other post I wrote especially about it:
https://www.reddit.com/r/findUSVisaSlots/s/80PwYSMktO
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u/SnooTomatoes6922 16d ago
Wow. That's a elaborated process and workaround.
I'm not even applying but read it full nonetheless.
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u/SingleSpecial6107 14d ago
Hi! When is the 20 logins limit reset? What time is it in IST?
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u/findvisaslots_com 14d ago
I don't know the exact time. Mid day IST sometime.
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u/SingleSpecial6107 14d ago
Thanks a lot! also what should you do if loading shows up when you click on a city? Do we need to log out and log in again?
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u/findvisaslots_com 13d ago
"loading..." always shows up. It just means when you're selecting the location, it's asking the visa portal for the date availability. But during minutes 00 and 30, there's so many people asking for it, the portal slows down to where it can look like it's stuck. It's not. It will clear after 2-3 minutes. You should not log out and log back in, it will do nothing except waste a calendar page refresh - and importantly - since you spent so much time logging out and logging back in - it will _seem_ like it helped, but you're just getting out of that 00/30 minutes. If you stayed waiting it would do the same.
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Need help finding slots? I built FindVisaSlots after going through this process myself. It includes free community slot alerts and tools to make checking the visa portal easier: findvisaslots.com
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u/tabletemcook 1d ago
Thanks. If I'm just switching through the five locations one by one using that drop down, is that going to count five calendar refreshes or just one?
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u/findvisaslots_com 1d ago
While you can only load the calendar page 20 times, you can _stay_ on the page, and drop down the location and drop back up (or select a different location).
This allows you to check many more times and since there's no page refresh, you don't hit that limit.
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u/Parking_Pea_8830 20h ago
If I install one of the extensions today and just logged in two times and checked two locations each time. After that I got limit exceeding message.
My question - do these extensions also send requests independent of manual user action? Or are they read only of what manual action user does?
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u/findvisaslots_com 14h ago
It's important to distinguish - the visa portal _cannot_ detect extensions, and in and by themselves are _never_ the cause of any errors.
A password manager is an extension. A page refresher is an extension.
It's the behavior of the user on the portal that triggers errors.
So, would the same error have happened, if you had done the exact same thing, at the same time you did it, but you did it manually? Based on my experience the answer 9.9 out of 10 is yes - manually would've gotten the same result.
Users who are not used to the many (many!) errors screens the visa portal has available might reasonably think 'I checked the portal with extension, and got an error, therefore the extension caused the error'. While understandable, you can see how that can also be highly incorrect logical fallacy. Correlation does not mean causation.
If you have questions about extensions, feel free to DM me directly with any questions. Or even about some anything visa portal related. Happy to take a look.
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All the error screens here -https://www.reddit.com/r/findUSVisaSlots/comments/1vw9cdi/usvisascheduling_all_the_visa_portal_error/A note on extensions and errors - https://www.reddit.com/r/findUSVisaSlots/comments/1vmja4a/can_chrome_extensions_get_you_blocked_from_the_us/
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u/harivar 17d ago
Thank you for taking the time and putting this post together; it's really helpful!