Can't collect Pokemon Go gym rewards

Question

I can't collect my gym rewards at the moment. Its says collect 3. I click on it and it goes white then back to green with no rewards. Then I start to lose the gyms i'm holding and have no rewards at the end of it. What's the key to fixing this problem?

Answer 1

This error is related to connectivity. There are 3 variations of the issue:

1. Your defending count is desynchronized and you don't actually hold as many gyms as the screen shows. This issue should be fixed upon closing and restarting the app, viewing the Trainer screen by tapping your avatar's face in the lower left corner of the overworld view sometimes resynchronizes and fixes issues like this as well. If you still hold any gyms after resynchronizing, it should work unless it's (also) affected by the second variation of the problem.
2. Your server connection is unstable and you don't actually collect the rewards. When you tap the icon, your game sends a message to the server requesting the rewards, but the server never receives the request because of connectivity issues. This can be fixed by improving your connectivity. Try restarting your data connection by going into and out of flight mode or rebooting your phone, or find a place with WiFi. Once your connection is stable enough, if it still doesn't work, check for variations 1 and 3.
3. Your server connection is unstable, but you did in fact collect the rewards. This is similar to the second variation, only this time, the server received the request, but your phone didn't receive the confirmation. The coins have been credited to your account and the clock is running, but your game doesn't show either of these things because it didn't get the memo. When you try again, the server declines the request because the clock is running. As such, this variation is a visual bug only and will be fixed once you close and restart the app.

Answer 2

You can only collect gym rewards once every 21 hours or so, no matter how many more gyms you have conquered during that time. So, the key is to defend as many gyms at one time before collecting your coins. The longer you can defend the same gym consistently, the higher the reward at the end of each 21 hours. For instance, if you are in 3 gyms currently and hit "collect", you get 30 coins. However, this starts the clock. So, if you lose two of those gyms by the time the clock runs out, you can only collect the reward for one gym. Inversely, if you defend 2 more gyms for a total of 5 by the time the clock runs out, then you can collect on all five gyms. Hope this helps.