Parent can't sign & submit FAFSA after completing their section - 'no application activity' error

my dad had same EXACT problem last week. he spent like 3 hrs filling everything out then got kicked out right before signing. when he logged back in everything was gone. so frustrating!!!!!

This is actually a known issue with the 2025-2026 FAFSA. The parent portal has been experiencing session timeouts that don't properly save draft information. Two things to try: 1. Have your mom try logging in using a different browser (Firefox seems to work better than Chrome for this specific issue) 2. Make sure she's accessing through studentaid.gov/fafsa directly and not through any email links If that doesn't work, try having her clear browser cookies/cache before logging in again. Sometimes the system has saved the information but shows the error message anyway.

THIS HAPPENED TO ME TOO!!! I'm the parent and completed everything last weekend but couldn't sign. Called FSA for THREE DAYS and couldn't get through to anyone. Every time I called it was "due to high call volume" blah blah then disconnect. FINALLY got through yesterday and they told me it was because I was using an FSA ID from an old email address that wasn't properly linked to my student's application. Had to create a completely new FSA ID with my current email and redo THE ENTIRE PARENT SECTION. The system is completely broken this year!!!

This is a widespread issue many parents are experiencing with the redesigned FAFSA for 2025-2026. A few technical details to understand what's happening: - The parent portal uses a different session management system than the student side - There's a known bug where parent contributions aren't properly linking to student applications if the parent logs out before digital signature - The "no application activity" message is misleading - the data is often still in the system but not properly associated Possible solutions (in order of effectiveness): 1. Have your parent check their email for a "Continue your FAFSA contribution" message from Federal Student Aid 2. Try the "Forgot where I left off" option on the parent login page 3. Contact your school's financial aid office - they can sometimes see pending parent contributions that aren't visible to you 4. As a last resort, try using the FAFSA PDF form to complete (though this isn't ideal) The important thing is not to panic about the May 1st deadline. Schools are well aware of these system issues and many are offering deadline extensions for affected students.

Have u tried calling the FSA helpline? Thats what we had to do when this happened to us. Took FOREVER to get through but they fixed it pretty quick once we finally talked to someone.

lol welcome to fafsa 2025-26... where everything's made up and your data doesn't matter! 🤣 but srsly tho the new "simplified" system is 10x worse than before

Update on this issue: The Department of Education released a patch yesterday for this specific problem. If your parent logs in today, they should see an option that says "Recover previous contribution data" on their dashboard. This should restore the information they previously entered. If that option doesn't appear, there's a workaround: 1. Have your parent create a new contribution from scratch 2. On the first page where they enter their name/info, there's now a small link at the bottom that says "Load saved information" 3. Clicking that will usually recover their previously entered data Hope this helps with your May 1st deadline!