Being bounced to the UNIfy home screen means the chat behind that link could not be opened on your account. The page does not tell you which reason applies, because it treats them all the same way: it shows "Failed to load chat session" and sends you back to the start.
Four situations produce the same result
- The chat belongs to another account. Chats are private to the person who had them. A link somebody sends you opens nothing on your account, even when you can both see the work it was about.
- The chat was deleted. Deleting it takes it out of your list, and its address stops working from that point on.
- The chat has no messages in it. A conversation you opened and never typed into is not stored, so there is nothing for the link to find.
- The address is wrong, or the request timed out. The page waits 30 seconds for an answer before giving up.
What to do instead
Open the sidebar and look for the conversation in your own list. If it is yours and it still exists, it is there, and opening it from the list always works. Finding an earlier conversation covers searching that list.
If somebody sent you the link, ask them for what they wanted to show you rather than for the link again. There is no way to share a chat with another member on UNI, so no version of that address will work for you.
Nothing was lost
Being redirected does not delete, close or overwrite anything. Your other conversations are untouched. The empty chat you land on is a fresh one rather than a replacement for the one you were after, and if you type nothing into it, it is not saved.