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Outgoing messages not respecting chat's disappearing-messages timer → recipient sees "This message will not disappear" / older-version warning (v0.7.1)

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Assessment

Difficulty
4/5
Estimated time
3-5 days
Newbie friendliness
45/100
Issue type
Bug
Clarity
Mostly clear
Activity status
Quiet
Tech stack
go
Domain
api, backend

Research direction

Start by tracing the /send/* endpoints and how the whatsmeow app-state disappearing-message setting is synchronized and applied. Verify the behavior with a chat using disappearing messages, then confirm sent messages carry the matching ephemeral expiration without showing the recipient warning.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Description

Summary

When a recipient's chat has disappearing messages enabled, messages sent through any /send/* endpoint arrive without the chat's ephemeral timer. The recipient's WhatsApp then shows an info ("i") badge on the message and the dialog:

"This message will not disappear."
"The person may be using an older version of WhatsApp."

The message is delivered and readable — this is cosmetic — but it makes API-sent messages look broken/untrustworthy to end users, and the "older version of WhatsApp" wording is misleading (the sender is the API).

Environment
  • Evolution Go v0.7.1 (latest tag, self-hosted)
  • whatsmeow-based stack
  • Recipient: regular/consumer WhatsApp with disappearing messages turned on for that chat
Steps to reproduce
  1. On a consumer WhatsApp, enable disappearing messages for a chat with the connected instance's number.
  2. Send a plain message from the API: 
    POST /send/text
{ "number": "<recipient>", "text": "hello" }
  3. Server responds HTTP 200 with a real message ID ("message":"success", Type: ExtendedTextMessage).
  4. On the recipient device, the message arrives with an info "i" badge; tapping it shows "This message will not disappear / the person may be using an older version of WhatsApp."
Expected behavior

Outgoing messages should inherit the chat's disappearing-messages timer, i.e. be sent with the proper ephemeralExpiration / ContextInfo.Expiration (and EphemeralSettingTimestamp) matching the chat's app-state setting — so no warning is shown.

This is the same class of bug documented in Baileys: WhiskeySockets/Baileys#1687 — "Send message is not respecting chat disappearing mode" → "The message should be sent with chat default disappearing mode if ephemeralExpiration option is not set."

Suggested fix / questions
  • Does the instance sync chat app-state (disappearing timer) and apply it on send? It appears not to.
  • Could /send/* either (a) auto-apply the chat's synced ephemeral timer, or (b) expose an optional expiration (seconds) field so callers can set it explicitly?
Notes
  • Reproduced live; all /send/* calls return 200 success regardless, so the HTTP layer gives no signal that the ephemeral marker is missing.
  • Low severity (cosmetic), but affects perceived reliability of API-sent messages to any contact using disappearing messages.
Dominant language
Go
Stars
929
Forks
499
Avg merge
5m
Merged PRs (30d)
1

Getting set up

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  • No contributing guide

First steps

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  2. Comment on the issue to say you are picking it up — it saves two people doing the same work.
  3. Fork the repository and make your change on a branch.
  4. Open a pull request that references the issue number.

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