Find and fix messages that didn’t send

When WhatsApp won’t deliver a message, two things happen. The message turns red in the chat, with the reason written underneath. And it joins the Failed Messages list, one place for every failure in your workspace, whoever or whatever sent it: a teammate, a bulk send or a workflow.

Your routine is simple: open the list, read each reason, fix what can be fixed, and dismiss the rest. The reason is the important part. It tells you whether sending again will work, or whether the message was never going to arrive.

The list lives inside the Inbox. It doesn’t have a sidebar item of its own: you open it from a red banner that only appears when something has failed.

The list replaces the chat on the right. Your chat list stays on the left, so you can jump back at any time with the arrow at the top.

• Filter - the time range goes from Last 2 hours to Last 7 days (it starts on Last 48 hours). Source is Workflow, Bulk Send or Manual. Error type narrows to one reason. A Clear link resets them.
• Open closes the list and opens that contact’s chat. Scroll to the red message to read the full reason.
• Dismiss (×) moves the failure off the active list. It doesn’t delete or resend the message. It only says “handled”.

Changed your mind? Show dismissed switches the list to what’s been cleared, and Restore puts one back.

The list only has room for a short label, and several different problems share the label Send failed. The chat has the full story, so open it before you decide what to do.

Every failed message on a WhatsApp Business number reads the same way:

The title is what the red card in the chat says. “In the list” is the shorter label on the Failed Messages list. The tag says whether sending again will help.

On a WhatsApp Business number there is no Retry button. Once you’ve fixed the cause, open the chat and send a new message, or a template if the 24-hour window has closed. Copy the wording from the dimmed original in the red card.

On other channels, a small red retry arrow sits next to the failed message’s time (“Retry sending message”). Click it to send the same message again.

• Some failures fix themselves. When WhatsApp is busy, Exabloom retries once on its own. You only see the failure if that retry also fails (Couldn’t deliver after retries).
• The list covers the last 7 days. Older failures drop off, even if nobody dismissed them.
• Open lands at the bottom of the chat, not on the failed message. Scroll up to find the red card if more messages came after it.
• “Media download failed” is about a file they sent you. It means a photo or document the contact sent couldn’t be downloaded, not that your message failed. Ask them to send it again.
• A disconnected number fails everything at once. On a regular WhatsApp number, messages that couldn’t go out because the phone was disconnected are listed as WhatsApp disconnected. On a WhatsApp Business number they show up as Send failed, and the red card may only say “Something went wrong”. Either way, if several failures land at once, check Settings → Social Channels and reconnect before sending anything again.
• The banner and the list can count dismissals differently. The banner counts the last 48 hours; Show dismissed counts 7 days. Neither is wrong, they just look back different distances.