[NOWEB] - First message from Click-to-WhatsApp ad contact (@lid) not emitted and missing from API on 2026.8.2
Describe the bug
Sometimes the first message from a new contact who clicks a Click-to-WhatsApp (Facebook/Instagram) ad never reaches WAHA. The message shows on the linked phone and in WhatsApp Web, but WAHA emits no message / message.any webhook for it. It also doesn't come back from GET /api/{session}/chats/{chatId}/messages, whether we query the @c.us id or the @lid id.
This looks like #1922, which was fixed in 2026.4.3, and like #2074 and #1383. We still see it on 2026.8.2 with NOWEB.
What we saw on one affected chat:
- The contact's first message (the ad's prefilled text) arrived on the phone and in WhatsApp Web. WAHA emitted no inbound event for it: no
message, nomessage.anywithfromMe: false. - The session was running normally at that moment. It emitted other
message.anyandmessage.ackevents for other chats within the same minute. - A few minutes later, the business replied to that contact from the phone app. WAHA did emit
message.any(fromMe: true,source: "app", chat id<id>@lid,_data.key.remoteJidAlt=<phone>@s.whatsapp.net) andmessage.ackfor that reply. - The drop is intermittent. Other first messages from ad contacts that same day, all with
@lidsenders and the same prefilled text, were delivered normally asmessage.anywithfromMe: false.
So the session was connected and knew about the chat, but the contact's first inbound message was silently skipped.
Version
{
"version": "2026.8.2",
"engine": "NOWEB",
"tier": "CORE",
"browser": null,
"platform": "linux/x64"
}Session config: noweb.store.enabled: true, noweb.store.fullSync: true. Webhook events: session.status, message, message.any, message.ack.
Steps
To Reproduce
- Link a WhatsApp Business number to a NOWEB session with the store enabled.
- Run a Click-to-WhatsApp ad on Facebook/Instagram that points at that number.
- A new contact who has never chatted with the number clicks the ad and sends the prefilled message.
- The message appears on the phone and in WhatsApp Web.
- For some of these contacts, WAHA emits no
message/message.anyevent, and the message isn't inGET /api/{session}/chats/{chatId}/messages.
Expected behavior
Every inbound message the phone receives, including the first message from an ad contact with an @lid sender, should be emitted as message / message.any and stored in the NOWEB store.
Requests - Responses
GET /api/{session}/chats/{phone}@c.us/messages?limit=100&offset=0&downloadMedia=false → 200 []
The only webhook events for that chat were our own reply:
{
"event": "message.any",
"payload": {
"fromMe": true,
"source": "app",
"from": "<id>@lid",
"_data": {
"key": { "remoteJidAlt": "<phone>@s.whatsapp.net" },
"message": { "extendedTextMessage": { "text": "<reply text>" } }
}
}
}Additional context
- Only the contact's first message is affected; later messages in the same chat come through. This matches #1383.
- All affected senders are
@lidcontacts coming from ads. - #2074 reports the same drop with NOWEB on
2026.4.3, after the #1922 fix.
Is there a log level or setting that would surface the decryption failure or dropped event, so we can send logs for the next occurrence?
Source: devlikeapro/waha