downloadMedia() when downloading gifs

[leftbrasil]

Is there an existing issue for this?

• [X] I have searched the existing issues

Describe the bug

When trying to download a gif with message.downloadMedia() the function returns 'undefined'. After some digging i found that the line 400 in Message.js is the responsible for the problem. Line: if (msg.mediaData.mediaStage.includes('ERROR') || msg.mediaData.mediaStage === 'FETCHING') {

the problem is 'msg.mediaData.mediaStage' equals to 'FETCHING' causing it to return undefined. After checking that the media is downloaded correctly on chromium dev tools (in chrome the mediaStage is 'NEED_POKE'), i have removed the check for 'FETCHING' and now the gif is download correctly. It's safe to remove this line? What should i do? This line was modified on issue #763

Expected behavior

I expect the gif is downloaded but downloadMedia is returning 'undefined'

Steps to Reproduce the Bug or Issue

Send a gif to your own number.

Relevant Code

var media = await message.downloadMedia();

media is 'undefined'

Browser Type

Chromium

WhatsApp Account Type

WhatsApp Business

Does your WhatsApp account have multidevice enabled?

Yes, I am using Multi Device

Environment

windows + latest whatsapp-web.js npm version

Additional context

No response

[Verzach3]

If you don't check if the media is undefined the media will be always undefined

[leftbrasil]

I do check if media is undefined on downloadMedia() return. But the 'fetching' check doesn't make sense to me, but i don't have enough experience on this project to affirm that. I was looking for an explanation for what could happen if i remove the 'fetching' check but keep the 'error' check part. Can you clarify? I would be grateful.

[gkp1]

Write proper steps to reproduce the bug, downloading gifs from whatsapp (which are always .mp4 if you dont know) works normally for me

[Zi5han]

I've got a very simillar problem, I tried to make a sticker bot and I consistently got the issue, where after a couple successful conversions, downloadMedia() eventually starts returning undefined. After I removed || msg.mediaData.mediaStage === 'FETCHING' in Message.js in the downloadMedia() method, just like @leftbrasil, the issue was gone.

@gkp1 if you need code where the issue becomes apparent, you can try this code and convert media to stickers a couple times by quoting a message with a media and adding the caption "sticker":

client.on('message', async msg => {
    if (msg.body == 'sticker' || msg.body == 'Sticker') {
        if (msg.hasQuotedMsg) {
            const quoted_msg = await msg.getQuotedMessage();
            const chat = await msg.getChat();
            const chat_id = chat.id._serialized;
            const media_message = await quoted_msg.downloadMedia();
            await client.sendMessage(chat_id, media_message, { sendMediaAsSticker: true });
        }
    }
});

Hopefully someone can eventially confirm whether it's safe to remove || msg.mediaData.mediaStage === 'FETCHING'

[gkp1]

Your code looks right, I'm not sure if the chat Id serialized is correct tho. I believe You can use message.from instead of chat Id serialized, and it will still work for groups and private dms.

or even better, what I use is msg.reply(media, undefined, {sendMediaAsSticker:true}) ( yes undefined is required there)

If you use chrome stable instead of chromium, this will also work with sending animated stickers for .mp4 and gif videos. As I said GIFs in the WhatsApp chat are just short mp4s.

https://wwebjs.dev/guide/handling-attachments.html#caveat-for-sending-videos-and-gifs

[Zi5han]

Thank you for your suggestions. Using message.from seemst to be more elegant, I just changed it for me. As for msg.reply(), I deliberately didn't use it, because I didn't want the bot to quote the message. I have no problems converting diffrent types of media to sticker, my only issue was that it would stop working after a short while and removing || msg.mediaData.mediaStage === 'FETCHING' seemed to fix the issue for me.

[leftbrasil]

Before i posted this issue, I did some research and found that might be a problem when you try to download a sticker that already have been downloaded before and/or when sending messages to myself (same number - from and to equals)

[Zi5han]

I thought the same, but I noticed, that it doesn't have to be the same media all the time for the code I sent to start failing. The 'FETCHING' thing was deffenetly the cause.

Now and then, I get a slight feeling that there are concepts in play here, that are currently beyond my understanding lol

[andresindlp]

I can confirm removing || msg.mediaData.mediaStage === 'FETCHING' fixes it. Thanks!

[DannyAndres]

It happens to me too with gif and videos, it also works by removing the fetching. I get the video and everything being able to manipulate it succesfully but I don't really like to edit the package, I would like to stay within the code that comes when updating with npm to have the latest becuase it looks like an active package that will get a lot of other features, also maintaining that code change will be really painfull.

There must be something that that line is doing, right? otherwise somebody would have sent a merge request removing that line already.

Is there any other solution to this? I tried a couple and non of them worked, I get undefined no matter what

[leftbrasil]

Well, actually nobody could explain why these lines are there. Maybe we could PR this and try it out

[rama4zis]

I've got a very simillar problem, I tried to make a sticker bot and I consistently got the issue, where after a couple successful conversions, downloadMedia() eventually starts returning undefined. After I removed || msg.mediaData.mediaStage === 'FETCHING' in Message.js in the downloadMedia() method, just like @leftbrasil, the issue was gone.

@gkp1 if you need code where the issue becomes apparent, you can try this code and convert media to stickers a couple times by quoting a message with a media and adding the caption "sticker":

client.on('message', async msg => {
    if (msg.body == 'sticker' || msg.body == 'Sticker') {
        if (msg.hasQuotedMsg) {
            const quoted_msg = await msg.getQuotedMessage();
            const chat = await msg.getChat();
            const chat_id = chat.id._serialized;
            const media_message = await quoted_msg.downloadMedia();
            await client.sendMessage(chat_id, media_message, { sendMediaAsSticker: true });
        }
    }
});

Hopefully someone can eventially confirm whether it's safe to remove || msg.mediaData.mediaStage === 'FETCHING'

Yeah this work for me, just remove || msg.mediaData.mediaStage === 'FETCHING' in node_modules/whatsapp-web.js/src/structures/Message.js

Can someone make PR to fix this problem? Or this will make another problem?

[pedrokohler]

https://github.com/pedroslopez/whatsapp-web.js/pull/2491

just opened a PR to fix this

[MikeyA-yo]

I can confirm removing || msg.mediaData.mediaStage === 'FETCHING' fixes it. Thanks!

how did you manage to use whatsapp web.js to convert gif to sticker i have been trying this for like eternity

[ethan2cl]

I can confirm removing || msg.mediaData.mediaStage === 'FETCHING' fixes it. Thanks!

Hello, may I ask if there are any new issues after deleting this line of code? Will frequent calls increase the frequency of being banned

[MikeyA-yo]

That line of code is from the node modules right?

On Mon, Apr 8, 2024, 9:17 AM ethan @.***> wrote:

I can confirm removing || msg.mediaData.mediaStage === 'FETCHING' fixes it. Thanks!

Hello, may I ask if there are any new issues after deleting this line of code? Will frequent calls increase the frequency of being banned

— Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub https://github.com/pedroslopez/whatsapp-web.js/issues/2029#issuecomment-2042137250, or unsubscribe https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/BA7EIS6DZY3HUBGI5FAQQODY4JHC7AVCNFSM6AAAAAAVH3QB52VHI2DSMVQWIX3LMV43OSLTON2WKQ3PNVWWK3TUHMZDANBSGEZTOMRVGA . You are receiving this because you commented.Message ID: @.***>