I have 20 available lives as usual, but can't load them to play

Over the past few days, I've not been able to use any lives at all. It shows 20/20, but when I go to load them, it sends out 5 lives to other players, but doesn't load up the 5 for me to play, and it also shows a "blank" envelope. So, the only way I can use lives is if enough time goes by and it adds 1 after 25 or 30 minutes - whatever that time frame is. Anyone know why this is happening? I feel like it might have something to do with a setting in my computer but I don't know what setting that could possibly be. Any suggestions?