Will this thing ever go away? I've had it for a very long time now.

Anyone else have this issue?

My experience is such that they just disappear after a certain period of time. Like the library notification about updated games. Not sure how long, though... If you've seen the chat, try reloading the page, signing out and back in, or restarting the browser. :/

Not much help, am I now? xD

They should go away some time after you've read the new chat.

I have this notification too, but no new chats

Yes, the phantom chat notification. There was a number of topics about it, though no solutions have materialized. I've contacted support, and was told they'd look into it, but it's still there and I haven't heard from them since. I'll give them a gentle reminder after the sale is over.

I'd watch that instead of The Phantom Menace anytime...

But I haven't had a new chat in a long time. Ah well, guess I'll keep trying.

Try deleting your cookies and/or signing out and back in.

It's probably Mr e asking you for sexytime videos, that's what he did with me.

Do you remember if you've had it since the New Account System rolled out?
If yes, then there's a chance that it corresponds to a PM that never made it into your chat during the transition (I've lost hundreds of PMs then), hence you can't find the message and can't clear the notification.
If this is the case, I'm afraid you won't ever be able to get rid of it.

If it's later than that, it's quite likely one of those bugs that randomly hit people, and GOG never seems able to track down and fix for good.

Send a message to each contact on your chat list and see if anyone turned it off.

I don't like the idea of bothering 20-30 people, most of which I've hardly communicated with, over such a small thing.
Besides, I believe it was caused by someone sending me a message followed by 1) blocking me or 2) clearing the conversation or 3) being deleted (it was a scammer) before I could read the message. Several other people reported this same situation in other threads (this is the third or fourth one) so I'm fairly certain this is the cause.

Yeah, I've already tested it with OP over this. Someone on his list changed the privacy settings.

IT'S A CHRISTMAS MIRACLE!