I’m working with a Telegram bot using pyTelegramBotAPI and running into a weird issue. When I access message.from_user.id at the beginning of my script, I get one value. But when I check the same property later in the code, the ID has changed to something completely different.
The strange thing is that if I only check the user ID in one specific location, it stays consistent. The problem only happens when I try to access it from multiple places in my code.
I double-checked that I’m working with the same message object, and other properties like first_name remain the same. For instance, I might get first_name = "John", id = "481572" early in the code, but then first_name = "John", id = "739481" when I check it later.
Has anyone encountered this before? What could cause the user ID to change while other message properties stay the same?
This sounds like memory corruption or you’re accidentally modifying the user ID somewhere. I’ve seen this happen with mutable objects getting passed between functions. Check if you’re reassigning or messing with the message object between those access points. Even though other properties stay the same, something might be overwriting the ID field. You might also be dealing with multiple message objects without knowing it - especially if your bot processes messages concurrently or has callback handling that mixes up contexts. I’d add debug logging right before and after each user ID access, including the message object’s memory address to confirm you’re working with the same instance. Also check for any string manipulation or type conversions on the ID field.
that’s weird - i’ve never seen telegram user ids actually change. are you sure you’re not mixing up string vs int types? sometimes the id gets converted between string/int in different parts of the code and looks like it changed, but it’s just formatting. also check if you have custom serialization or caching that might be corrupting the data.
I hit the same issue when switching between webhooks and polling. Turns out my bot was mixing up message objects when I had multiple handlers running at once. Check if you’re using middleware or decorators that wrap your message handlers. Also make sure you’re not creating new bot instances or reinitializing the API connection between those access points. Could also be thread safety issues if your bot handles multiple messages at the same time. Try adding a print statement with the message update_id and user ID - if they’re changing together, you’re definitely dealing with different messages than you think.