Unable to modify Discord bot message after sending

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1

I’m running into a problem where my Discord bot cannot modify a message after I send it. When I try to retrieve the message using its ID and then edit it, I keep getting this error:

discord.errors.NotFound: 404 Not Found (error code: 10008): Unknown Message

Here’s the code that reproduces this issue:

import asyncio
import discord
from discord.ext import commands
from discord.commands import slash_command

class MessageEditor(commands.Cog):
    def __init__(self, client):
        self.client = client

    @slash_command(name='edit_test', description='Test message editing')
    async def edit_test(self, context):
        message_embed = discord.Embed(
            description="Original message content"
        )
        sent_message = await context.respond(embed=message_embed, ephemeral=True)
        message_id = sent_message.id

        await asyncio.sleep(2)

        target_channel = self.client.get_channel(context.channel_id)
        retrieved_message = await target_channel.fetch_message(message_id)
        updated_embed = discord.Embed(
            description="Updated message content"
        )
        await retrieved_message.edit(embed=updated_embed)

def setup(client):
    client.add_cog(MessageEditor(client))

I need to fetch the message from the channel first before editing it. This approach should work but it’s throwing the unknown message error. Any ideas what might be causing this?

2

You’re mixing interaction responses with regular message handling. When you use context.respond(), it creates an interaction response that doesn’t work like a normal Discord message. The sent_message.id you get isn’t a valid message ID for channel fetching - especially with ephemeral responses. I’ve hit this exact issue switching from regular commands to slash commands. Don’t try fetching the message again - work directly with the interaction response object. Either use sent_message.edit_original_response() like mentioned, or if you need a regular message object, use await context.send() instead of context.respond(). That creates a proper message you can fetch and edit through normal channel methods.

3

The problem is that context.respond() returns an interaction response object, not a regular message object. You can’t fetch ephemeral messages through normal channel methods - they exist in a different context entirely. Skip the fetching altogether. Store the response object and use await sent_message.edit_original_response(embed=updated_embed) to modify it. This works for both ephemeral and regular responses. Your current approach won’t work because ephemeral messages aren’t accessible through normal channel message retrieval.

4

ephemeral messages can only be seen by the user who triggered them, that’s why you get that error. just try removing ephemeral=True and it should work for you!