The WhatsApp API does not support all the messages available in the WhatsApp application. If you try to send one of these unsupported messages, you’ll see an alert in the conversation stating the message is not supported.
Unsupported message types
Currently, WhatsApp API does not have support for the following message types:
- Live location
- Disappearing messages
- WhatsApp warnings and notices, for example:
- The number has changed
- Conversation is using end-to-end encryption
- Disappearing messages are not supported in this conversation
Resolve disappearing message errors
By default, disappearing messages are turned off. However, there may be times when a message is sent as a disappearing message due to a bug with the WhatsApp application. This can be difficult to turn off during a conversation.
If you see the following error message - “Unsupported message: ephemeral” - ask the contact to do the following:
- From their WhatsApp account, go to Settings > Privacy > Disappearing messages
- Turn off disappearing messages.
- Delete the WhatsApp conversation with your business.
- Start a new conversation with you.
This should set the conversation to not use disappearing messages, and you should be able to chat with your customer normally. If the customer wishes to use disappearing messages, you can tell them to turn them back on again after the conversation has started.
About “Unsupported” or “Unknown” message errors
These error messages appear as alerts during your conversation with a contact.
This type of error occurs because WhatsApp has not yet implemented a functionality in its API to prevent it. Unfortunately, there is no resolution for this, but there are some known common workarounds:
- Live Location
If the customer is trying to send a live location, ask them to send their exact location instead. - WhatsApp Notices
Notices usually don’t provide any useful information to the conversation other than informing of privacy-related information, so you can just ignore them.