How to fix journey steps that don't advance

If your journey step seems stuck and isn't advancing, the issue may be in how your behavioral triggers and time-based conditions are combined.

If you've set up a step to wait a few days and then check whether a profile (someone visiting your website) did something, the journey might seem stuck even after the waiting period has passed. This article explains why that happens and how to set up the logic you actually want.

Combining behavioral events and time-based conditions

The journey steps combine two components:

A behavioral trigger only fires when a new event comes in. Without a new event, there's nothing to trigger the check. The behavioral trigger checks when a new event occurs, such as a visit, click, purchase, or another interaction.
A time-based condition fires automatically when the time is up. It doesn't need a profile to do anything.

When you combine the behavioral trigger and time-based condition with AND, the step only evaluates when a new event arrives after the profile reaches that step. At that moment, it checks whether the time condition is also met. Events that occurred before the profile reached this step don't count.

Consider the following:

Behavioral trigger needs a new event to fire the check
Time condition fires automatically
AND both must be true when the check fires

This means the check fires only when a new event arrives, and at that moment, the platform also asks, "Is the time condition met?" If no new event ever comes in, the check never fires, even if the time condition is already true.

The journey stays at this step because no new event has arrived to trigger the evaluation — not because of a bug or delay.

Learn more about how triggers and rule logic work and about the differences between time windows, waits, and delays.

Example

A team’s intent is to wait 3 days and then check if the profile has visited the pricing page. They set up a journey step with 2 conditions joined by AND:

Behavioral trigger: the profile visited the pricing page
Time-based condition: 3 days have passed since the profile entered the step

However, this step only evaluates when a new pricing page visit arrives after the profile has reached this step. A visit that happened before, even by one day, doesn't count.

If the profile doesn't visit the pricing page again, the step never moves forward. The platform is working as designed. The configuration doesn't match the intent.

Instructions

The right fix depends on what you want to happen.

Option 1: Wait a set time, then continue

Use a time-based condition on its own.
Remove the behavioral trigger from that step.

The journey advances once the time condition is met, regardless of what the profile does next.

Option 2: Check for behavior within a time window

Split the logic across 2 steps:

Add a wait step before your condition step. Set it to the duration you want, for example, 3 days.
After the wait step, add a step with a behavioral trigger. Set a time window on the condition, for example, "visited the pricing page in the last 3 days."