Telegram bot sendAudio method not working with Python

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1

I’m working on a Python Telegram bot that can send text messages and photos without any issues. However, I’m struggling to get audio file sending to work properly. The bot should send an MP3 file when users trigger a specific command, but nothing happens.

Here’s my message handler function:

def send_response(message=None, photo=None, sound=None):
    if message:
        response = urllib2.urlopen(API_URL + 'sendMessage', urllib.urlencode({
            'chat_id': str(user_id),
            'text': message.encode('utf-8'),
            'disable_web_page_preview': 'false',
            'reply_markup': keyboard_json,
        })).read()
    elif photo:
        response = multipart.post_multipart(API_URL + 'sendPhoto', [
            ('chat_id', str(user_id)),
            ('reply_to_message_id', str(msg_id)),
        ], [
            ('photo', 'pic.jpg', photo),
        ])
    elif sound:
        response = multipart.post_multipart(API_URL + 'sendAudio', [
            ('chat_id', str(user_id)),
            ('reply_to_message_id', str(msg_id)),
        ], [
            ('audio', 'track.mp3', sound),
        ])

And here’s how I handle different message types:

if 'option_a' in message:
    send_response(message='Welcome message here')
elif 'option_b' in message:
    pic = Image.open('files/sample.jpg')
    buffer = StringIO.StringIO()
    pic.save(buffer, 'JPEG')
    send_response(photo=buffer.getvalue())
elif 'option_c' in message:
    audio_file = open('files/sample.mp3')
    buffer = StringIO.StringIO()
    audio_file.save(buffer, 'MP3')
    send_response(sound=buffer.getvalue())

Text and image responses work great, but the audio sending fails completely. Any ideas what might be wrong with my approach?

2

The issue is in how you’re handling the audio file buffer. Audio files can’t be saved to StringIO the same way images can - there’s no save method for raw audio file objects. You need to read the file content directly instead. Replace this problematic section: python audio_file = open('files/sample.mp3') buffer = StringIO.StringIO() audio_file.save(buffer, 'MP3') send_response(sound=buffer.getvalue()) With this corrected version: ```python
with open(‘files/sample.mp3’, ‘rb’) as audio_file:
send_response(sound=audio_file.read())

3

I encountered similar behavior when working with sendAudio and discovered that the filename parameter matters more than expected. Telegram’s API can be picky about the file extension in the multipart form data. Try modifying your multipart call to ensure the filename has proper extension: (‘audio’, ‘track.mp3’, sound) should work, but sometimes adding the duration parameter helps with reliability. Also worth noting that your urllib2 usage suggests you’re on Python 2 - the string handling might cause encoding issues with binary audio data. Consider adding explicit content-type headers in your multipart request, something like ‘Content-Type’: ‘audio/mpeg’. I’ve seen cases where the API silently fails without proper MIME type specification for audio files.

4

your code looks mostly fine but check if the mp3 file size isnt too big. telegram has limits on audio files and will reject them silently if they exceed the size limit. also try adding some error handling to see what response you’re getting from the api - might give you clues about whats failing.