Not receiving a new message but can star, unstar, and send a message into the same chat

[tanin47]

Is there an existing issue for this?

• I have searched the existing issues.

Is this a problem caused by your code, or is it specifically because of the library?

• I have double-checked my code carefully.

Describe the bug.

I'm using remote auth, and it seems sometimes the remote auth cache becomes corrupted.

The symptoms are:

• It doesn't receive any new message
• The phone receives the new messages.
• It can send out a message into the same chat (that it didn't receive a message). In my system, there's an HTTP endpoint that allows me to send a message.
• chat.fetchMessages doesn't return any new message
• It can star and unstar the messages just fine (This is our healthcheck mechanism ... to check that the system is still working).
• If I create a new group, it still doesn't receive a new message from the new group.

If I delete the remote auth cache and pair it again, then everything will start working again. I suspect that the cache might fall into a partially corrupted state somehow.

I wonder if there's anything I can do to debug more... or if there's a way to delete message cache without requiring a new pairing.

Thank you.

Expected Behavior

It should receive new messages

Steps to Reproduce the Bug or Issue

Difficult to reproduce. It happens some of the times

WhatsApp Account Type

Standard

Browser Type

Chromium

Operation System Type

Docker + Linux

Phone OS Type

Android

WhatsApp-Web.js Version

v1.27.0

WhatsApp Web Version

Node.js Version

v22.11.0

Authentication Strategy

RemoteAuth

Additional Context

No response

[tanin47]

I can reproduce this locally but cannot tell what the root cause is.

One error that pops up: sendIq called before startComms and castStanza called before startComms

Then, it tried to send a crash log to facebook but it seems the access token has expired.

[marcelo386]

This bug has been occurring for a while now, Meta has not fixed it to this day, the message is arriving via socket normally, even without using script injection in the browser, the same error occurs in some conversations, difficult to reproduce in tests

[tanin47]

Is there a way to reset the state to make it work without repairing?

Since sending a message still works, I assume it's still working. It's just that the cache is corrupted somehow.

[andremorescocia]

Same here! Any updates on this issue?
I’ve updated to the latest version, and it still persists.
I still can’t understand why this happens.

[tanin47]

We've figured it out. Whatsapp-web.js currently uses a very old version of puppeteer (v18). Puppeteer explicitly flags that this version has been deprecated. The newer version is v24.

The headless chrome in puppeteer v18 is a stripped down version of chrome focusing on automation. It doesn't mirror the headful chrome as explained below. Unsurprisingly when we use headful chrome, it works just fine.

Here's the explanation of the stripped down version:

After we fork whatsapp-web.js and update puppeteer to v24, this issue has gone away. I believe the stripped down version of chrome causes general instability.

Still, there are other small issues e.g. puppeteer hangs when closing the browser, but that's solvable.

I hope it helps and best of luck!