[SOLVED] Messages order of smooch

Messages order of smooch - whatsapp

I have a bot and I use smooch to run the bot on whatsapp.

I use 'smooch-core' npm for that.

When I send a lot of messages one after the other sometimes the messages are displayed in reverse order in whatsapp.

Here is the code for sending messages:

for (const dataMessage  of data) {
            await sendMessage(dataMessage);
        }



function sendMessage(dataMessage) {
    return new Promise((resolve, reject) => {
    smoochClient.appUsers.sendMessage({
                appId: xxxx,
                userId: userId,
                message: dataMessage
            }).then((response) => {
                console.log('response: ' + JSON.stringify(response), 'green');
                resolve();
            }).catch(err => {
                console.log('error: ' + JSON.stringify(err), 'red');
                reject(err);
            });
});

All dataMessage looks like this:

{
   role: "appMaker",
   type: "text",
   text: txt
}

I tried to see how I could arrange it, and I saw that there was an option to get the message status from the webhook, and then wait for each message to arrive for the appropriate status. And only then send the following message.

But I would like to know is there something simpler? Is there a parameter that can add to the message itself to say what its order is? Or is there something in the npm that gives information about the message and its status?

Solution

In the doc below, Whatsapp mentions that they do not guarantee message ordering. https://developers.facebook.com/docs/whatsapp/faq#faq_173242556636267

The same limitation applies to any async messaging platform (and most of them are), so backend processing times and other random factors can impact individual message processing/delivery times and thus ordering on the user device (e.g. backend congestion, attachments, message size, etc.).

You can try to add a small [type-dependent] delay between sending each message to reduce the frequency of mis-ordered messages (longer delay for messages with attachments, etc.).

The fool-proof way (with much more complexity) is to queue messages by appUser on your end, only sending the next message after receiving the message:delivery:user webhook event for the previous message.