Jio Prime Membership recharge failed? Here's what you can do before you run out of time

The advantages of Jio Prime membership were not quite clear until Reliance Industries chairman Mukesh Ambani addressed the millions of users on late-Friday. In a letter to all of Jio customers, Ambani made two major announcements – extension of Jio Prime membership deadline and Jio Summer Surprise offer – to make Jio Prime worthwhile.

Until Friday, Jio Prime's biggest highlight was the option to continue using the 1GB 4G data per day and unlimited calls by paying just Rs. 303 a month. But the Summer Surprise offer by Jio certainly sent chills down incumbents' spines while giving a reason to celebrate for its 100+ million subscribers.

According to Jio, 72 million users have already migrated to Jio Prime by paying the one-time fee of Rs. 99, which unlocks a bundle of exciting surprises in the months to come. With Friday's announcement, there's an unusual rush to join Jio Prime even though the deadline has been extended till April 15.

Due to the extreme demand for Jio Prime following Ambani's announcement of Jio Summer Surprise, the servers seemed to have overloaded. This has been causing multiple failures in attempts to recharge for Jio Prime.

When we tried recharging ourselves, we were met with various errors in MyJio as well as JioMoney app. The overloaded servers did not let us sign in to either of the apps. But after multiple attempts when we were finally able to sign it, we were not able to carry out any transactions or recharges.

After several failed attempts, we tried the Jio Prime recharge through Paytm. But the widely-used mobile wallet in India also failed to respond to our request. It is clear that Jio's servers are overloaded, but the extension in the deadline is likely to relieve the jammed network over the next few days.

If you are trying to register your new Jio number with MyJio or JioMoney app, we found a few helpful tips that worked for us.

MyJio app errors and how to fix them

When you first download and launch MyJio app, click open on the right side and continue to sign in. It will fail to sign in with SIM card, so choose sign in or sign up (if this is your first time signing into the app). When you sign up, you will be asked for your Jio number and generate OTP to continue. Follow the prompts on the app to complete registration and you can then proceed to managing your Jio account and even recharge for Jio Prime from within the app.

During the registration, you will be treated with multiple errors. At that point, try closing the app (even from the background) and launch it again to continue. Even though the error shows, we found that the registration was completed at the backend. So you will be asked to directly sign in the next time.

JioMoney app errors and how to fix them

The registration process is a bit different in JioMoney than in MyJio. Since JioMoney is used for your monetory transactions, there are extra layers of security. Download the app, open it, enter your Jio number and select Login/Setup. If you are already registered, it will ask for your password and then your 4-digit mPin to continue. Once you get past that, everything's is self-explanatory. You can add money and instantly recharge your number. But due to the server crash, we were unable to complete any recharges at the time of this writing.

If you are a new user, you will go through a registration process. You can create your own password, which has to be alphanumeric with at least one special character. Once you get past that, you can create your four-digit mPin to unlock the app. During the registration, if you get loading errors, close the app (even from the background) and re-launch it continue the registration. If the errors persist, it's best to wait till the servers are free to handle your request.

We are hoping the Jio servers will start working again and it will be less congested over the next 15 days to cater to millions of requests. We will continue to try recharging for Jio Prime over the next few days to see if it goes smoothly. If you wish to join Prime instantly, you can walk into any of the Reliance Digital stores and request for a recharge done from one of the helpdesks.