Telegram Bot "chat not found"

Question

I have the following code in Python to send a message to myself from a bot.

import requests

token = '123456789:ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZABCDEFGHI'
method = 'sendMessage'
myuserid = 1949275XX
response = requests.post(
    url='https://api.telegram.org/bot{0}/{1}'.format(token, method),
    data={'chat_id': myuserid, 'text': 'hello friend'}
).json()
print(response)

but this returns {'description': 'Bad Request: chat not found', 'error_code': 400, 'ok': False}

What am I doing wrong? I got myuserid by sending /getid to @myidbot and I got my token from @BotFather

You need to have written to the bot, before the bot can send you a message. — Maak, Dec 16 '16 at 00:30
what is get id command? maybe its not user id and its bot id — Mohammad Fanni, Dec 16 '16 at 15:14
He means the [@myidbot](http://telegram.me/myidbot) which does return the user id. — Maak, Dec 17 '16 at 17:14
@Maak when I write to the bot, I just get an immediate answer about default commands. — Adam, Jan 15 '22 at 11:08

score 49 · Accepted Answer · edited Mar 24 '23 at 05:31

49

As @maak pointed out, you need to first send a message to the bot before the bot can send messages to you.

edited Mar 24 '23 at 05:31

Muhammed Rahif

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answered Dec 22 '16 at 21:07

Bijan

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How do we get their bot's name? – Ritter7 Oct 25 '20 at 08:29
3

How to accomplish this? I have opened bot's page in Telegram and typed something. This didn't help – Dims Jun 12 '22 at 13:11

score 24 · Answer 2 · answered Jan 30 '21 at 06:51

24

I was using prefix @ before the value of chat_id as suggested everywhere. I removed it and it started working. Note: if your chat id is 12345678 then you need to prefix it with -100 such that it is -10012345678. Example Postman call:

/sendMessage?chat_id=-10012345678&text=Let's get together

answered Jan 30 '21 at 06:51

NKM

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2

This should be updated in Telegram docs. I wasted hours trying out various things before I found the solution. – NKM Jan 30 '21 at 06:51
Adding -100 is totally wrong. Why you want to do that? He wants to write to a private chat. Group ids start with -100. You can't just add that, because you'll try to send a message to random, unknown group or channel. – PythoNic Feb 14 '21 at 12:14
That did the trick for me. Probably because the group in question is of type "Supergroup". – Kuepper Oct 13 '21 at 17:09

Dan Walters · Answer 3 · 2020-08-06T15:37:15.053

10

If your trying to send messages to a group, you must add a ‘-‘ in front of your chat ID. For example:

TELEGRAM_REG_CHAT_ID="1949275XX"

should be

TELEGRAM_REG_CHAT_ID="-1949275XX"

edited Aug 06 '20 at 15:37

answered Jul 10 '20 at 13:12

Dan Walters

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This is not the case. You need to message the bot before it can message you – Bijan Jul 10 '20 at 18:45
4

This is not asked. Especially group ids start with `-100`. – PythoNic Feb 14 '21 at 12:11
1

This worked for me too - is this documented anywhere? – Malachi Nov 01 '21 at 20:37

score 1 · Answer 4 · answered Mar 28 '18 at 08:44

1

There is a way to send notifications messages to telegram. It's a bit tricky but the tutorial is great!

http://bernaerts.dyndns.org/linux/75-debian/351-debian-send-telegram-notification

I just sended a message of my apache state to a privat channel. Works also on public channel but it's not what i wantet. As you call a script (bash) you can prepare the parameters in any script language.

Hope that helps.

answered Mar 28 '18 at 08:44

Martin S.

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the link is broken – Aryeh Armon Oct 07 '20 at 06:19

score 1 · Answer 5 · answered May 14 '21 at 19:47

1

For me it worked only with @ prefix before channel id

answered May 14 '21 at 19:47

kashlo

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Tan Nguyen · Answer 6 · 2021-11-25T07:37:36.347

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If you want to use a bot message to the channel, you can refer step here

Steps:

Create a Telegram public channel
Create a Telegram BOT (for example x_bot) via BotFather
Set the x_bot as an administrator in your channel

the chat_id is @x_bot, it's a part of https://t.me/x_bot that does not add your channel name.

edited Nov 25 '21 at 07:37

answered Nov 25 '21 at 07:32

Tan Nguyen

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score 1 · Answer 7 · answered Dec 07 '22 at 09:36

1

I had some trouble with this after upgrading to a supergroup. The chat_id was updated and it was a bit harder to find this new id.

In the end I solved this with this by following this comment: https://stackoverflow.com/a/56078309/14213187

answered Dec 07 '22 at 09:36

StevenMalai

11
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I faced the same issue. Which solution did you mean? using getUpdates? – bilogic May 22 '23 at 23:20

score 1 · Answer 8 · answered Jan 18 '23 at 09:02

Telegram bots can't send messages to user, if that user hasn't started conversation with bot yet, or bot is not present in chat (if it's a group chat). This issue is not related to the library, this is simply Telegram restriction, so that bots can't spam users without their permission.

you need to first send a message to the bot before the bot can send messages to you.

score 0 · Answer 9 · edited Jul 06 '21 at 14:58

0

If you use a username, it does not require any prefix. That means the following are incorrect:

https://t.me/vahid_esmaily_ie
t.me/vahid_esmaily_ie

And this is the correct case:

vahid_esmaily_ie

edited Jul 06 '21 at 14:58

joanis

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answered Jul 05 '21 at 12:12

vahid esmaily

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score 0 · Answer 10 · answered Jul 01 '23 at 08:30

Make sure you use user id instead of username if you're sending message to user.

From the docs:

Parameter	Type	Required	Description
chat_id	Integer or String	Yes	Unique identifier for the target chat or username of the target channel (in the format `@channelusername`)
...	...	...	...

To get the chat id programmatically, see Getting updates for ways to get Update JSON object. For example, when a user sends a message, the Update object will have a Message object inside it which has a Chat object which has the chat id. Turns out the chat id is the same as the user id.

score 0 · Answer 11 · answered Aug 26 '23 at 11:33

0

using the user_id in int() form worked for me

answered Aug 26 '23 at 11:33

jedidiah

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Telegram Bot "chat not found"

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