Chat.fetchMessages with limit: Infinity return only one message

[TheMacros]

Is there an existing issue for this?

• I have searched the existing issues

Describe the bug

I'm trying to fetch all messages from all chats. As described in the documentation, I need to pass the Infinity to the limit property of the searchOptions https://docs.wwebjs.dev/Chat.html#fetchMessages. But I received only the latest message from the chat instead of all messages.

Expected behavior

As described in the documentation the method should return all messages from the chat.

Steps to Reproduce the Bug or Issue

1. use fetchMessages() over a chat.
2. See the response, you'll see only the latest message in the chat is returned

Relevant Code

const chats = await this.client.getChats();
chats.forEach((chat) => {
    // Also, the chat.fetchMessages without searchOptions returns the same
    chat.fetchMessages({
        fromMe: undefined,
        limit: Infinity
    })
        .then((messages) => {
            console.log('Chat -----', chat.name, chat.id._serialized);
            messages.forEach((message) => {
                console.log("\t Message ----", message.from, message.to, message.body, message.id.id);
            });
        });

Browser Type

Chromium

WhatsApp Account Type

Standard

Does your WhatsApp account have multidevice enabled?

Yes, I am using Multi Device

Environment

• Ubuntu 18.04
• iOS
• whatsapp-web.js version 1.21.0
• WhatsApp Web version 2.2326.10
• Node.js version 16.13.1

Additional context

No response

[krumpking]

You have to wait a bit while it fetches messages before calling this method, so after client connects, set a TimeOut or something to delay a bit while all messages are loading, then try get the messages, I hope this helps : )

[TheMacros]

You have to wait a bit while it fetches messages before calling this method, so after client connects, set a TimeOut or something to delay a bit while all messages are loading, then try get the messages, I hope this helps : )

Thanks, but if I run this

chat.fetchMessages({
        fromMe: undefined,
        limit: 1024
});

I get all messages (or 1024 max).

[krumpking]

interesting, I am yet to experience that, I believe someone with more experience in that

[HardRockPorn]

"Infinity" should be a string. Works fine.

const messages = await chat.fetchMessages({limit: "Infinity"});

[ivanzigoni]

i've stumbled upon this error too

does anyone know if there's a pr for it already? i volunteer to fix this.

@HardRockPorn

this is supposed to be a number (or Infinity)

[ivanseidel]

I just spent the last 4 hours debugging this behavior.

What I can resume from my findings:

There are 3 Layers of data:

• In memory messages (internally used as chat.msgs.getModelsArray)
• In local db messages (internally used as Store.ConversationMsgs.loadEarlierMsgs)
• External messages (internally called history sync on demmand): This is where the problem resides

Looking into what actually happens is as follows:

• When the interface loads up a specific conversation, just 20 messages are pulled from local db and loaded into memory.
• When user scrolls, and reaches the end, more messages are pulled from local db to memory.
• When user reaches the LIMIT, no data is returned from loadEarlierMsgs and a button appears so the user can force a history sync from the device.

The thing is, this method is not whell documented, but I have figured out how to call it and force it to load more messages, and even, be able to change "how many messages" to fetch from device at once.

The steps are (assuming moduleRaid exists):

Step 0: (optional) set how many messages to force a history sync

mR.findModule('bulkCreateOrReplaceABPropConfigs')[0].bulkCreateOrReplaceABPropConfigs([{
    "configCode": 3811,
    "configValue": 1000, // Default value is 50
    "configExpoKey": null,
    "hasAccessed": false
}])

Step 1: Trigger a History sync on demand

const HISTORY_SYNC_ON_DEMAND = 3 // Operation code declared a few times in source code
await mR.findModule('sendPeerDataOperationRequest')[0].sendPeerDataOperationRequest(HISTORY_SYNC_ON_DEMAND, {
    "chatId": mR.findModule('createWid')[0].createWid('5511999999999@c.us') // The WID to Sync on demand goes here
})

Step 2: Use loadEarlierMsgs after finished (notice that this function is async, but doesn't wait until completion to return, need to investigate further)

Step 3: Read from getModelsArray as usual

This should be enough to force a on demand sync of a specific chat.

[hdem607]

@ivanseidel, I didn't get your suggestion. Kind of hard to understand what to do to solve it, despite it is easy to understand the layers of data and how WA works behind the scenes.
Why don't you PR with the suggestion? Your idea of forcing fetch, as user do (clicking on the button), is awesome.