The Meta-hosted Cloud API empowers medium and large businesses to engage with customers on a grand scale. It enables businesses to construct systems facilitating the interaction of thousands of customers with agents or bots, supporting both automated and manual communication. Moreover, seamless integration with various backend systems, including CRM and marketing platforms, further enhances the capabilities of this API.
You can check the potential causes below to understand why you have issues with Cloud API:
Message Not Delivered
The following scenarios can cause a message to appear as "sent" but not "delivered":
- The customer did not come online during the 30-day window during which Meta holds messages for offline customers.
- The customer has blocked your business.
- The customer is in a restricted or sanctioned country.
In all other scenarios, the API returns an error code with an error message describing the reason for the error. Example scenarios:
- Invalid request parameters
- Integrity errors
- The customer has not accepted Meta's new Terms of Service and Privacy Policy. Please send your end user this link: https://wa.me/tos/20210210 to accept the latest Terms of Service.
- The customer is using an old version of WhatsApp. Customers should use the following version or greater:
- Android: 2.21.15.15
- SMBA: 2.21.15.15
- iOS: 2.21.170.4
- SMBI: 2.21.170.4
- KaiOS: 2.2130.10
- Web: 2.2132.6
- The customer is part of an experiment group.
To debug it, contact your customer by some other means and ask if they can send a message to your business phone number.
Country Restrictions
Businesses in Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Syria, and three sanctioned regions in Ukraine (Crimea, Donetsk, Luhansk) are not eligible to use the WhatsApp Business Platform.
WhatsApp Messenger (WhatsApp) and WhatsApp Business app users in Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Syria, and three sanctioned regions in Ukraine (Crimea, Donetsk, Luhansk) are not eligible to receive messages sent via the WhatsApp Business Platform.
Businesses in Turkey can use the platform, but app users in Turkey cannot receive messages sent via the API.
Webhooks
Conflicting Message Delivery Status
In exceptional cases, a single message might prompt both success and failure message status updates via webhooks. For instance, a message could trigger message webhooks indicating "status": "delivered" on one occasion and "status": "failed" on another. This might happen when a customer logs in to WhatsApp on multiple devices, resulting in successful delivery to one device but not another. It's important to note that any message triggering a "delivered" status webhook has been successfully delivered to at least one of the user's devices.
Error Code 2 - API Service
When Meta updates the API, you may experience up to 5 minutes of downtime. During this period, the service becomes unavailable. Meta strives to implement these updates with minimal disruption to businesses; however, you might experience some impact.
Meta suggests you wait 5 minutes to debug it and try to make the API call again.
Authentication and Authorization Errors
You receive these errors when there is a problem with the access token you use for the API call. To debug it:
- You can directly paste the access token you are using into the Access Token Debugger. Then, ensure you select the whatsapp_business_management and whatsapp_business_messaging permissions.
- If your token can’t access the permissions, you must generate a new one. While generating the token, make sure to select:
- The Meta app you are using for the API calls.
- The following permissions: whatsapp_business_management and whatsapp_business_messaging.