diff --git a/HellionChat/EmoteCache.cs b/HellionChat/EmoteCache.cs
index 0af31b7..260da90 100644
--- a/HellionChat/EmoteCache.cs
+++ b/HellionChat/EmoteCache.cs
@@ -125,6 +125,15 @@ public static class EmoteCache
         try
         {
             var global = await Client.GetAsync(GlobalEmotes, ct);
+            if (!global.IsSuccessStatusCode)
+            {
+                // Nothing usable at all -- let the catch below reset to Unloaded
+                // so a later trigger can retry.
+                throw new HttpRequestException(
+                    $"BetterTTV global emotes returned {(int)global.StatusCode}."
+                );
+            }
+
             var globalList = await global.Content.ReadAsStringAsync(ct);
 
             foreach (var emote in JsonSerializer.Deserialize<Emote[]>(globalList)!)
@@ -135,9 +144,27 @@ public static class EmoteCache
             for (var i = 0; i < 15; i++)
             {
                 var top = await Client.GetAsync(Top100Emotes.Format(BetterTTV, lastId), ct);
+
+                // The shared-emote endpoint went behind authentication and now
+                // answers 403 with a JSON object. Deserializing that as a list
+                // threw on every single start, and took the global emotes -- which
+                // still work -- down with it. The global set is the useful half
+                // anyway, so a failure here stops paging instead of the load.
+                if (!top.IsSuccessStatusCode)
+                {
+                    Plugin.LogProxy.Warning(
+                        $"BetterTTV shared emotes unavailable ({(int)top.StatusCode}); "
+                            + "continuing with global emotes only."
+                    );
+                    break;
+                }
+
                 var topList = await top.Content.ReadAsStringAsync(ct);
 
-                var jsonList = JsonSerializer.Deserialize<List<Top100>>(topList)!;
+                var jsonList = JsonSerializer.Deserialize<List<Top100>>(topList);
+                if (jsonList is not { Count: > 0 })
+                    break;
+
                 // BetterTTV occasionally returns entries with a null Code;
                 // skip them so a single bad row doesn't break the whole cache.
                 foreach (var emote in jsonList)
@@ -147,7 +174,7 @@ public static class EmoteCache
                     )
                         Cache.TryAdd(emote.Emote.Code, emote.Emote);
 
-                lastId = jsonList.Last().Id;
+                lastId = jsonList[^1].Id;
             }
 
             SortedCodeArray = Cache.Keys.Order().ToArray();