Vercel-hosted Telegram Bot: Sluggish Initial Response to /start Command

Other Questions Telegram bot
1

I’m having trouble with my Telegram bot. It’s built with Node.js and Telegraf, and I put it on Vercel. The bot has a referral system that checks if users are in our database.

Here’s the weird part: when someone uses /start for the first time in a while, the bot takes forever to answer. But after that, it’s super quick. This slow start is messing up our referral system because sometimes users get registered before the bot can do its thing.

I thought the bot would be snappy from the get-go, but nope. It’s like it needs a coffee to wake up after being idle. Once it’s awake, though, it works great.

Anyone else run into this? Any ideas on how to make it faster right from the start? I’m worried we’re missing out on referrals because of this lag.

Here’s a simple version of my code:

const { Telegraf } = require('telegraf');
const axios = require('axios');

const bot = new Telegraf(process.env.BOT_TOKEN);

bot.start(async (ctx) => {
  const userID = ctx.from.id.toString();
  
  try {
    const user = await axios.get(`${process.env.API_URL}/users/${userID}`);
    if (!user.data) {
      await axios.post(`${process.env.API_URL}/users`, { id: userID });
    }
    ctx.reply('Welcome to the bot!');
  } catch (error) {
    console.error('Oops, something went wrong:', error);
  }
});

bot.launch();

Any help would be awesome!

2

I have experienced a similar issue with my Vercel-hosted Telegram bot. The sluggish initial response appears to be due to the typical cold start behavior inherent in serverless functions that need to spin up after being idle. One approach that worked for me was to implement a mechanism that kept the bot active by pinging it at regular intervals, such as using a cron job. I also improved performance by optimizing the code, reducing unnecessary dependencies, and using techniques like connection pooling for database queries. Additionally, I explored Vercel’s Edge Functions as they tend to have faster cold start times compared to traditional serverless functions. Although some delay is inevitable in serverless environments, these strategies can help reduce the initial lag considerably.

3

Your issue sounds like a classic cold start problem with serverless functions. I’ve dealt with this before, and it can be frustrating. Have you considered using a keep-alive service to ping your bot periodically? This could help prevent it from going completely dormant. Another option is to optimize your database queries and API calls. Maybe you could cache some data locally to reduce external requests on startup. Also, look into Vercel’s edge functions or consider moving to a platform with better cold start performance if it’s a critical issue. Lastly, you might want to implement a queue system for processing referrals to ensure you don’t miss any during that initial lag period. It’s a tricky problem, but there are definitely ways to mitigate it.

4

hey, this looks like a cold start issue. try a keep-alive ping and caching API responses to speed up the initial call. also, vercel’s edge functions might be a good alternative to reduce lag.