Unable to Remove WhatsApp Reaction via API (Developtment Number)

[CaioMatins]

Attempt 1 - Removing reaction via Pywa remove_reaction method

I tried using the remove_reaction method in client.py to remove a reaction, and I received the following response (example values):

SentMessage(
    id='message_id',
    to_user=User(wa_id='to_number', name=None),
    from_phone_id='phone_id'
)

However, the reaction was not removed on WhatsApp.

Attempt 2 — Removing reaction via Meta Graph API (cURL)

I also tried using Meta's cURL directly:

curl -X POST 'https://graph.facebook.com/<API_VERSION>/<WHATSAPP_BUSINESS_PHONE_NUMBER_ID>/messages' \
-H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
-H 'Authorization: Bearer <ACCESS_TOKEN>' \
-d '{
  "messaging_product": "whatsapp",
  "recipient_type": "individual",
  "to": "<WHATSAPP_USER_PHONE_NUMBER>",
  "type": "reaction",
  "reaction": {
    "message_id": "<WHATSAPP_MESSAGE_ID>",
    "emoji": ""
  }
}'

This also did not work.

---

Note

• I was able to add a reaction successfully via the API.
• I could also change the reaction.
• The issue occurs only when removing a reaction.

Has anyone else experienced this? Any insights or workarounds would be appreciated!

[david-lev]

Hi @CaioMatins
Thanks for sharing your experience. To better assist you, could you please confirm which version of PyWa you're currently using? You can check this by running pip show pywa

[CaioMatins]

Hello @david-lev
I'm using version 2.9.0, but I don't think the problem is with pywa. It seems to be Meta itself, as I ran a cURL and still had a problem.
Thanks for your time.

[yehuda-lev]

Hi, @CaioMatins from what I've checked it seems to be working normally
Can you check this code? 👇

@wa.on_message()
def get_msg(_: WhatsApp, msg: types.Message):
    msg.mark_as_read()
    msg.react("❤️")
    msg.unreact()

[yehuda-lev]

Hmm, I don't know, as you can see in the video it works for me. I also checked with a test number.
Maybe you are missing permissions in the app?

Screen_Recording_20250826_131710_WhatsApp.mp4

[CaioMatins]

Are you using a test number? I'm doing via cURL and still not working. But the API returns sucess

[yehuda-lev]

Yes! The video is about Test Number.
Please try the example code
Update pywa to V3 by

pip install pywa -U

Run pywa as debug and record video 🙏

[CaioMatins]

Yes! The video is about Test Number. Please try the example code Update pywa to V3 by

pip install pywa -U

Run pywa as debug and record video 🙏

Gravando.2025-09-12.110250.mp4

I recorded a video to show you what's happening. My code looks like this:

msg.react('👋')
msg.unreact('👋')

[yehuda-lev]

I recorded a video to show you what's happening. My code looks like this:

msg.react('👋')
msg.unreact('👋')

I see, can you check with a regular number and not a test number?

[CaioMatins]

Hello, @yehuda-lev and @david-lev .
I updated pywa to v3, and the @wa.on_message decorator stopped working. I suspect the problem is with the server when initializing the WhatsApp client, since I wasn't using FastAPI or Flask; I used Frappe. However, I did a little debugging in the 'on_message' function, and my debugging failed there. Any clues?

[CaioMatins]

Hello, @yehuda-lev and @david-lev . I updated pywa to v3, and the @wa.on_message decorator stopped working. I suspect the problem is with the server when initializing the WhatsApp client, since I wasn't using FastAPI or Flask; I used Frappe. However, I did a little debugging in the 'on_message' function, and my debugging failed there. Any clues?

Add business_account_id and check, I don't know if pywa supports Frappe

I'm having an issue with pywa (WhatsApp Client).
I was able to initialize the client with the business_account_id parameter, but my message handlers (decorators) are not being triggered when a message is received.

The client object is created successfully, but the decorated function is never executed.

WhatsApp Client Initialization Example

def get_whatsapp_client(self) -> WhatsApp:
    return WhatsApp(
        phone_id=self.get_phone_number_id(),
        token=self.get_access_token(),  # Note: fixed typo from 'acess' to 'access'
        verify_token=self.get_webhook_verify_token(),
        business_account_id=self.get_business_account_id(),
        server=None,
        validate_updates=False
    )
The return is: <pywa.client.WhatsApp object at 0x747851a54ac0>

Example Handler

@wa.on_message(filters=filters.text)
def text_handler(_, msg: Message):
    print("It's working")  # This is never printed

---

Note

• Before updating the pywa version, this setup was working with Frappe.
• After the update, the handler is no longer called.

---

Thanks a lot for your support and time. Hopefully, we can fix this issue. 🙏

[yehuda-lev]

@david-lev Does pywa support Frappe?

@CaioMatins Can you try to use Flask or FastApi to check if the problem is only on Frappe? 🙏

[CaioMatins]

@david-lev Does pywa support Frappe?

@CaioMatins Can you try to use Flask or FastApi to check if the problem is only on Frappe? 🙏

@david-lev and @yehuda-lev unfortunately I can´t use Flask or FastAPI. I'll have to configurate to much things to run Flask or FastAPI.
I would like to contribute to add Frappe as server, if I can.

[david-lev]

@CaioMatins, I don't see any reason why not to work with Frappe.
I am not familiar with the framework, but you can use any web framework you like. Just call the wa.webhook_update_handler with the arriving update, and pywa will parse it and take care of the rest.

[CaioMatins]

@CaioMatins, I don't see any reason why not to work with Frappe. I am not familiar with the framework, but you can use any web framework you like. Just call the wa.webhook_update_handler with the arriving update, and pywa will parse it and take care of the rest.

I've done this before and it's not working. Here's what I did:

response, status_code = wa.webhook_update_handler(
				update=frappe.request.get_json(),
				hmac_header=frappe.request.headers.get("X-Hub-Signature-256")
			)

return Response(response, status=status_code)

I thought doing this would work, but it didn't. Do you have any clues?