Sending Telegram Bot API requests while responding to webhooks?

Other Questions Telegram bot
1

I’m trying to figure out how to make a request to the Telegram Bot API while sending a response to a webhook. The docs mention it’s possible but I’m having trouble getting it to work.

Here’s what I’ve tried:

header('Content-Type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded');
$payload = http_build_query([
    'action' => 'postMessage',
    'recipient' => 456,
    'message' => 'Hello world'
]);
echo $payload;

I expected this to send a message but nothing seems to happen. The bot doesn’t respond at all. Am I missing something obvious here? Maybe there’s a different way to structure the request or output the data?

Any tips on how to correctly send API requests while handling webhooks would be super helpful. Thanks!

2

hey, i had a similar problem. what worked for me was using curl for the API request after sending the webhook response. something like this:

echo 'OK';
ob_flush();
flush();

$ch = curl_init('https://api.telegram.org/bot<TOKEN>/sendMessage');
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS, ['chat_id' => 456, 'text' => 'Hi']);
curl_exec($ch);
curl_close($ch);

this way u respond to the webhook first, then send ur message. hope it helps!

3

I’ve encountered this issue before when working with Telegram bots. The key is to separate the webhook response from the API request.

Instead of trying to combine them, handle the webhook first by sending a 200 OK response immediately. Then, make your API call separately using cURL or a similar method.

Here’s a basic approach that worked for me:

// Send 200 OK response to webhook
http_response_code(200);
header('Content-Type: application/json');
echo json_encode(['status' => 'ok']);

// Flush output buffer
ob_flush();
flush();

// Now make API request
$ch = curl_init('https://api.telegram.org/bot<YOUR_BOT_TOKEN>/sendMessage');
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_POST, 1);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS, [
    'chat_id' => 456,
    'text' => 'Hello world'
]);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, true);
$result = curl_exec($ch);
curl_close($ch);

This method ensures you’re responding to the webhook promptly while still making your API request. Hope this helps!

4

I’ve dealt with this exact scenario in my Telegram bot projects. The trick is to handle the webhook and API request separately. Here’s what worked for me:

First, send a quick 200 OK response to the webhook:

http_response_code(200);
echo 'OK';
ob_flush();
flush();

Then, make your API call using file_get_contents():

$apiUrl = 'https://api.telegram.org/bot' . BOT_TOKEN . '/sendMessage';
$params = [
    'chat_id' => 456,
    'text' => 'Hello world'
];
file_get_contents($apiUrl . '?' . http_build_query($params));

This approach ensures you’re responding to the webhook promptly while still sending your message. It’s been reliable in my experience.