I’m building a Telegram bot using Python and the official API. I’ve run into an issue with handling user interactions that require responses. Here’s what happens: when my bot asks user A a question and waits for their reply, user B might send a message or start a new conversation before user A responds.
The Telegram API works with offset codes for updates. When you fetch updates, you send an offset value. Any update with an ID lower than this offset gets marked as processed and removed from the queue. This creates a problem because the offsets are sequential - if I acknowledge update ID 5, then updates 1 through 4 also get deleted automatically.
What would be the most effective and clean approach in Python to manage multiple ongoing conversations where each user might be at different stages of interaction with the bot?
I encountered a similar challenge while creating a support bot for our organization. What proved effective was to maintain the session state independently from the Telegram updates. Utilize a dictionary or a Redis database to keep track of conversation states according to user IDs. Upon receiving updates, promptly acknowledge the offset while storing the conversation context in your session manager. This approach allows you to manage each user’s interaction without being affected by the sequential offset issue. Additionally, consider using the python-telegram-bot library; it simplifies offset management and supports better concurrent processing with its dispatcher pattern.
Same headache here! The offset system is super annoying with multiple users. I fixed it by using a queue approach - fetch all updates first, then process them one by one while keeping separate state dictionaries for each user_id. The trick is completely separating update acknowledgment from conversation logic. I store each user’s current step in a local dictionary and update it as conversations move forward. This lets you safely acknowledge all offsets without losing track of where each user is in their flow. Just handle edge cases like users who bail mid-conversation, or your state dictionary will bloat forever.
webhooks are great for this! they let your bot handle multiple chats at once without losing updates. each interaction is separate, so you won’t deal with that offset mess. give it a shot!