I’m building a Telegram bot using the official Bot API and I’m facing an issue with message retrieval. My bot is set up as an admin for a specific channel and I’m trying to fetch the most recent message that hasn’t been deleted.
When I call the getUpdates endpoint with these parameters:
- My bot token for authentication
- offset set to -1 to get the latest update
- limit set to 1 to retrieve just one message
The problem is that even after I delete the latest message from the channel, the API response still includes that deleted message instead of moving to the previous non-deleted one. This behavior is causing issues in my application logic.
Is there a way to configure the getUpdates call so it automatically skips deleted messages? Or do I need to implement additional filtering on my end to handle this scenario?
unfortunetly, there’s no built-in flag to skip deleted messages with getUpdates. had the same problem last month - you have to handle it in ur code. check if the message object exists or catch errors during processing. you could also try polling with shorter intervals instead of using offset -1.
Yes, the behavior you’re encountering is indeed how the Telegram Bot API operates. The getUpdates method does not automatically exclude deleted messages; instead, it provides a continuous stream of updates based on the update_id. When a message is deleted, the update relating to that message remains in the queue. Therefore, you will need to implement filtering on your server side. After fetching updates, consider verifying the message availability with another API call or managing the message validation within your bot’s logic. In my experience, maintaining a local cache of valid message IDs can mitigate this issue effectively. Alternatively, using webhooks instead of getUpdates might be beneficial. Webhooks offer immediate updates and allow for better message management, although you would still need to account for deleted messages in your implementation.
Telegram’s API keeps update IDs in order even when messages are deleted, which is why you continue to see them in getUpdates. In my experience with channel bots, the most effective solution is to implement a validation step after retrieval. When an update is received, you should check the message content or perform a quick API call to ensure it exists before proceeding. Additionally, maintaining a local list of processed update IDs can prevent handling the same deleted message again. If real-time processing is essential, using webhooks may offer an alternative, but validation logic would still be necessary.
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