Messages may not be deleted on all devices in some cases

[j-g00da]

• Operating System (Linux/Mac/Windows/iOS/Android): Linux
• Core Version: 2.48.0
• Client Version: 2.48.0

Expected behavior

Deleted message should always be removed from all devices.
We should store Message-IDs of failed deletions in a table and verify incoming messages against these IDs to make sure deleted messages always get deleted.

Actual behavior

Sometimes, when message is deleted it won't be deleted on all devices.
After checking logs, it appears to be caused by delete request arriving before the message itself, which causes delete request to be ignored.

Steps to reproduce the problem

Happens at random, can't be easily reproduced.

Logs

2026-04-19T16:14:30.826Z	core/event            	WARNING	""	1	"src/receive_imf.rs:2470: Delete message: \"<9cdee411-50bf-4a64-be2e-ab2fac332e81@localhost>\" not found."

[iequidoo]

If a deletion request can't find the message, it should create a tombstone for that message so that it's deleted on a later receipt. We store tombstones for 2 days, so if the message arrives later, it won't be deleted, but idk what to do with this, we probably don't want to store any tombstones forever.

... There's a problem with a check msg.from_id == from_id then, e.g. another group member can delete the message, but this can only happen in case of message reordering and the problem already exists for usual messages, so we may ignore it and overall a group represents a scope of trust.

[iequidoo]

The same problem exists for edit requests, but it's harder to fix because edit requests always have Viewtype::Text, so we can display them, but in case of missing attachment it's not clear how to inform the user about that.