Whatsapp Cloud API uploading media files error

Question

currently I am trying to make a thin wrapper around Whatsapp Cloud API. One of the problem I am currently facing is that the uploading media files isn't working.

Looking through the documentation for uploading files , it seems that it expects a multipart/form-data payload to the endpoint.

Here is my current implementation

import FormData from 'form-data';
import fs from 'fs';
import axios from 'axios';

const formData = new FormData();

formData.append('file', fs.createReadStream('path/to/my/file.jpg'));
formData.append('messaging_product', 'whatsapp');
formData.append('type', 'image/jpeg');

await axios.post('https://graph.facebook.com/v14.0/PHONE_NO_ID/media', formData, {
  headers: { 'Authorization': ACCESS_TOKEN }
});

Looking at the error that it returns, it seems that I am somehow missing the messaging_product field even though I have properly add it in the formData.

{
  "error": {
    "message": "(#100) The parameter messaging_product is required.",
    "type": "OAuthException",
    "code": 100,
    "fbtrace_id": "FBTRACE_ID"
  }
}

The Postman collection works for uploading media file, so I am thinking that the file field of the formData is the problem. Is fs.createReadStream on a file equivalent to how Postman handle file uploading

EDIT: The question has been solved, the problems was not adding in the headers generated by the formData, Thanks Phil below!

Answer 1

Love the documentation... they say type is a required parameter then go on to show a curl example without it.

Also, file is not the...

Path to the file stored in your local directory

but instead a mime-encoded binary.

In any case, the type needs to be part of the mime-encoding by way of the content-type meta data and you then need to forward the content-type header generated by FormData .

You also may be missing the Bearer authentication token scheme.

const PHONE_NO_ID = "something";
const ACCESS_TOKEN = "something";

const formData = new FormData();

formData.append("file", fs.createReadStream("path/to/my/file.jpg"), {
  contentType: "image/jpeg",
});
formData.append("messaging_product", "whatsapp");

try {
  const {
    data: { id: mediaId },
  } = await axios.post(
    `https://graph.facebook.com/v14.0/${PHONE_NO_ID}/media`,
    formData,
    {
      headers: {
        Authorization: `Bearer ${ACCESS_TOKEN}`, // "Bearer" prefix
        ...formData.getHeaders(), // merge in FormData headers
      },
    }
  );
  console.log("media ID", mediaId);
} catch (err) {
  console.error("upload", err.toJSON());
}

Answer 2

Try this, it worked for me:

    var axios = require('axios');
    var FormData = require('form-data');
    var fs = require('fs');
    var data = new FormData();

    data.append('messaging_product', 'whatsapp');
    data.append('file', fs.createReadStream('./images/fly.jpg'));
    data.append('type', 'image/jpeg');

    var config = {
      method: 'post',
      url: 'https://graph.facebook.com/v13.0/phone_number_id/media',
      headers: { 
        'Authorization': 'Bearer access_token', 
        ...data.getHeaders()
      },
      data : data
    };

    axios(config)
    .then(function (response) {
      console.log(JSON.stringify(response.data));
    })
    .catch(function (error) {
      console.log(error);
    });