I’m working on a Telegram bot that saves group messages to a file. I’m using PHP to build this archiving system, but while it’s still in development, I’m manually calling the getUpdates method through my browser and storing the responses in text files.
I’ve noticed a strange issue with the update_id sequence. When I use the offset parameter to fetch new messages, there are gaps in the update_id numbers. For instance, if my last processed update_id was 1500, the next call might return update_id 1553 or 1540, completely skipping the messages in between.
This means I’m losing messages during the archiving process. Has anyone experienced similar issues with the Telegram Bot API? What could be causing these missing update_ids?
for sure! i’ve dealt with that too when i first started with telegram bots. those skipped update_ids don’t mean ur losing msgs - it’s just other events happening on telegram that your bot isn’t aware of. focus on the updates you can see and keep ur offset at the highest update_id + 1.
Those gaps are totally normal - it’s just how Telegram works. Each update_id represents every event happening across Telegram’s entire system, not just what your bot can see. When you call getUpdates with an offset, you’re basically saying ‘show me everything after this number that I’m allowed to access.’ The missing numbers? Those are updates your bot can’t see - private messages to other bots, groups you’re not in, admin stuff, etc. It’s like asking for every 10th page of a book - the other pages exist, you just don’t have permission to read them. For your archiving system, just process whatever updates you get and don’t worry about the sequential numbering. As long as you set your offset to the highest update_id + 1 from your last batch, you won’t miss anything your bot should be seeing.
This is totally normal with Telegram’s Bot API. The update_id numbers aren’t continuous because they cover way more than just messages - inline queries, callback queries, channel posts, and other webhook events all eat up update_id numbers. When you’re only watching group messages, you’ll see gaps because other update types are happening between them that your bot either doesn’t get or you’re not handling. Also, if you’ve got multiple bots on the same account or hit network issues while polling, that creates gaps too. Bottom line: you’re not losing messages. You’re just not seeing all the different update types that bump up the counter. Just process whatever updates you get instead of expecting them to be numbered consecutively.