Steam App - "Unable to load notifications. Please try again later."

[caw-caw-robinjay (she/her)]

In order to send payment for an auction I won recently, I need to accept a trade and then confirm it through Steam Guard on the iOS Steam app. However, the notifications tab (through which you confirm the trade) keeps showing a loading screen and then displaying the message "Unable to load notifications. Please try again later.". It's been telling me this for an hour and a half. I've restarted my phone twice and it didn't do anything. Do I just need to wait even longer? Is there another way to confirm the trade? If I don't pay within a day I'll get auction banned, which I would really rather not happen.

[caw-caw-robinjay (she/her)]

update: i tried deleting and reinstalling the app. still nothing.