Telegram can hold bot video posts to large channels until the video is re-encoded

Announced31 Oct 2024

Effective1 Dec 2024

StatusIn effect

What changed

Telegram's Bot API changelog (Bot API 7.11, October 31, 2024, repeated in Bot API 8.0 on November 17, 2024) warns that starting December 1, 2024, messages with video sent, copied or forwarded to groups and channels with a sufficiently large audience can be automatically scheduled by the server until the video is re-encoded. Such messages have 0 as their message identifier and cannot be used before they are actually sent. Telegram does not say how large an audience triggers this.

What it means

A video post sent by a bot to a big channel or group may not appear at once: Telegram can queue it on its server and the API returns message id 0.

Who is affected

Scheduling tools and bots that send, copy or forward videos to Telegram channels and groups with a large audience.

What to do by 1 Dec 2024

Do not treat message id 0 as a failure, and do not edit, pin or reply to that message right away. Wait until the post is actually sent before using it.

What this means for you

When a tool posts a video to a big Telegram channel, Telegram may first need to prepare the video. While it does that, the post waits on Telegram's side instead of showing up straight away. Your tool gets back a blank number for the post. The video still goes out, just a little later.

The details

Starts: December 1, 2024, per the warning in Bot API 7.11 and again in Bot API 8.0.
Scope: "messages with video that are sent, copied or forwarded to groups and channels with a sufficiently large audience."
What happens: the server can schedule the message "until the respective video is reencoded."
Returned id: such messages "will have 0 as their message identifier and can't be used before they are actually sent." Any follow-up call that needs the message id (edit, pin, delete, reply) has nothing to point at yet.
Not stated: the audience size that triggers this, how long re-encoding takes, or whether an update is sent when the message is finally posted.

What to do next

Business owners: Nothing. Expect big-channel video posts to appear a little after the scheduled time.
Marketers and agencies: If a video post to a large channel seems late, give it a few minutes before reposting, or you may post it twice.
Developers: Handle message_id: 0 from send, copy and forward calls as "queued, not failed", skip immediate edits or pins, and do not retry the send.

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