WhatsApp Business API – Fixing Media Download Issues (Voice, Images, Videos)

Problem:

When trying to download WhatsApp media (voice messages, images, videos) via the WhatsApp Business API, the response was an HTML file instead of the actual media.

Investigation

1. Step 1: Get Media ID URL
   First, I retrieved the media URL using the media ID:

   curl -X GET "https://graph.facebook.com/v18.0/{media_id}?access_token={access_token}"
   

   This returned a valid url pointing to lookaside.fbsbx.com.

2. Step 2: Download Media
   I tried downloading the media file using:

   curl -X GET "{media_url}" -H "Authorization: Bearer {access_token}" -o media_file
   

   Issue: Instead of an audio file, I got an HTML document.

3. Step 3: Checking API Response

   • I ran file media_file and saw:

     HTML document, Unicode text, UTF-8 text...
     

   • Opening the file in a text editor showed a Meta error page.
   • This suggested that either authentication failed or the wrong token was used.

1. Assign Business Access to the App User

• Go to Meta Business Manager → Users → People.
• Ensure the user has the right permissions for WhatsApp Business API.

2. Generate a Long-Lived User Access Token (Not a Page Access Token!)

• I initially used a long-lived page access token, but it didn’t work.
• Instead, I generated a long-lived user access token, and it worked!

Key Learning:
WhatsApp Business Media API requires a long-lived user access token, not a page access token.

Final Working Command

After fixing authentication, the correct way to download WhatsApp media:

curl -X GET "{media_url}" -H "Authorization: Bearer {long_lived_user_access_token}" -o voice_message.ogg

Then, check and play the file:

file voice_message.ogg  # Verify file type
ffplay voice_message.ogg  # Play audio (Linux/macOS)

Media successfully downloaded and working!