Why didn't I get the Meta ads message?

Why this happens

Sometimes a message that arrives through a Click-to-WhatsApp ad — the very first message in a brand-new chat — takes longer than usual for WhatsApp to decrypt. By default, Whapi doesn't send a webhook (or show the message via the API) until decryption succeeds, so if it's delayed, it can look like the message never arrived at all.

How to fix it

If you want to be notified right away instead of waiting, enable the send_undecrypted_ad setting on your channel. With it on, you'll get an immediate webhook for that first ad message even before it's decrypted — with a placeholder text in place of the real content:

Message could not be decrypted due to an issue receiving Facebook or Instagram ad messages via WhatsApp

The same placeholder also shows up if you fetch that message via the API while it's still undecrypted.

This isn't the final answer — once WhatsApp finishes decrypting the message, you'll get a second webhook with the actual text. The placeholder just lets you react to the lead immediately (send a greeting, route it to sales, etc.) instead of waiting.

You can turn this on in your channel's webhook settings — see Channel Settings overview → send_undecrypted_ad.

Webhook example

{
"id": "FAKE1D2sampLE3xAmPl3ExAmpL",
"from_me": true,
"type": "system",
"timestamp": 1785949031,
"source": "system",
"starred": false,
"chat_id": "[e-mail]",
"from": "1234567890",
"status": "read",
"subtype": "ciphertext",
"system": {
"body": "Message could not be decrypted due to an issue receiving Facebook or Instagram ad messages via WhatsApp"
},
"from_name": "John Doe"
}