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[NOWEB] sendImage WebP accepted but absent on recipient mobile (visible on Web)

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Assessment

Difficulty
3/5
Estimated time
1-2 days
Newbie friendliness
52/100
Issue type
Bug
Clarity
Mostly clear
Activity status
Active
Tech stack
typescript
Domain
api, backend

Research direction

Start with the sendImage endpoint and its image format documentation. Compare how NOWEB handles WebP sent through file.url with JPEG sent through file.data; the reported retest changed both format and transport, so isolate which difference explains the behavior. Done means determining whether WAHA can detect or clearly warn about images that may not appear on mobile, and documenting or validating that case.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Description

Describe the behavior

With WAHA NOWEB 2026.9.2, we sent offer images to WhatsApp groups via POST /api/sendImage using a public WebP URL, file.mimetype: image/webp, and a .webp filename. The API returned success and a message ID. A recipient could see the image and caption in WhatsApp Web, but the same recipient account did not see the message in WhatsApp on their phone.

We understand the WAHA documentation says to convert non-JPEG images to JPEG before sending. We are reporting the unexpected cross-device behavior after the API accepted the WebP request, and asking whether WAHA can detect or clearly warn about this case.

Version
  • Docker image: devlikeapro/waha:noweb-arm-2026.9.2
  • Engine: NOWEB
  • Endpoint: POST /api/sendImage
  • Recipient: WhatsApp group
Request shape
{
  "session": "<session>",
  "chatId": "<group-id>@g.us",
  "caption": "<offer text>",
  "file": {
    "mimetype": "image/webp",
    "filename": "product.webp",
    "url": "https://<public-host>/product.webp"
  }
}

The source URL served a valid WebP image. We are omitting account, group, and production URL details from this public issue, but can provide sanitized logs or a sample file if useful.

Observed
  1. WAHA returned HTTP 201 and a message ID. We confirmed this in the recorded results for the affected offer.
  2. The recipient saw the image and caption in WhatsApp Web.
  3. The same recipient account did not see the message in WhatsApp on their phone.
  4. We converted the offer image to JPEG with FFmpeg and sent it as base64 file.data, with image/jpeg and a .jpg filename. The recipient confirmed that this new message appeared on the phone.

The successful retest changed both the image format (WebP to JPEG) and the transport (file.url to file.data). Therefore we cannot yet isolate which change resolved the problem.

Expected / question

Could WAHA validate or warn when sendImage receives an image format that may be accepted by the API but fail to appear on recipient mobile clients? If WebP is intentionally accepted, is there a recommended way to detect this delivery failure? A prominent note in the sendImage endpoint docs about this possible symptom would also help.

We are not claiming that the media encoder is the proven root cause: the follow-up test changed both format and transport.

Dominant language
TypeScript
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Forks
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Avg merge
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Merged PRs (30d)
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