Intermittent "Send Video" Failure in Official n8n Node

[mooshuree]

I'm using the official OpenWA n8n node provided by the OpenWA project to send WhatsApp videos.

The workflow checks whether a number exists on WhatsApp, checks the OpenWA session status, and then sends a video using the Send Video node.

The "Send Video" operation works sometimes, but intermittently fails.

When it fails, n8n reports:
NodeApiError: The connection to the server was closed unexpectedly, perhaps it is offline. You can retry the request immediately or wait and retry later. at ExecuteContext.httpRequestWithAuthentication

Stack Trace

NodeApiError: The connection to the server was closed unexpectedly, perhaps it is offline. You can retry the request immediately or wait and retry later. at ExecuteContext.httpRequestWithAuthentication (/usr/local/lib/node_modules/n8n/node_modules/.pnpm/n8n-core@file+packages+core_@opentelemetry+api@1.9.0_@opentelemetry+exporter-trace-otlp_56f5a5be5f9a76dfbcdc404d6ec4dea5/node_modules/n8n-core/src/execution-engine/node-execution-context/utils/request-helpers/authentication.ts:145:9) at processTicksAndRejections (node:internal/process/task_queues:104:5) at ExecuteContext.httpRequestWithAuthentication (/usr/local/lib/node_modules/n8n/node_modules/.pnpm/n8n-core@file+packages+core_@opentelemetry+api@1.9.0_@opentelemetry+exporter-trace-otlp_56f5a5be5f9a76dfbcdc404d6ec4dea5/node_modules/n8n-core/src/execution-engine/node-execution-context/utils/request-helpers/factory.ts:119:11) at ExecuteContext.execute (/home/node/.n8n/nodes/node_modules/@rmyndharis/n8n-nodes-openwa/nodes/OpenWa/OpenWa.node.ts:2730:26) at WorkflowExecute.executeNode (/usr/local/lib/node_modules/n8n/node_modules/.pnpm/n8n-core@file+packages+core_@opentelemetry+api@1.9.0_@opentelemetry+exporter-trace-otlp_56f5a5be5f9a76dfbcdc404d6ec4dea5/node_modules/n8n-core/src/execution-engine/workflow-execute.ts:1082:8) at WorkflowExecute.runNode (/usr/local/lib/node_modules/n8n/node_modules/.pnpm/n8n-core@file+packages+core_@opentelemetry+api@1.9.0_@opentelemetry+exporter-trace-otlp_56f5a5be5f9a76dfbcdc404d6ec4dea5/node_modules/n8n-core/src/execution-engine/workflow-execute.ts:1382:11) at /usr/local/lib/node_modules/n8n/node_modules/.pnpm/n8n-core@file+packages+core_@opentelemetry+api@1.9.0_@opentelemetry+exporter-trace-otlp_56f5a5be5f9a76dfbcdc404d6ec4dea5/node_modules/n8n-core/src/execution-engine/workflow-execute.ts:1855:27 at /usr/local/lib/node_modules/n8n/node_modules/.pnpm/n8n-core@file+packages+core_@opentelemetry+api@1.9.0_@opentelemetry+exporter-trace-otlp_56f5a5be5f9a76dfbcdc404d6ec4dea5/node_modules/n8n-core/src/execution-engine/workflow-execute.ts:2549:11

I also added a session-status check immediately before Send Video. Even when the session status is reported as:

ready

the subsequent "Send Video" request can still fail.

Media size

I initially suspected a media-size limitation.

Small videos around 1–2 MB work.

Larger videos initially failed, but I discovered that the OpenWA Docker configuration had the default:

BODY_SIZE_LIMIT=25mb

I changed it to:

• BODY_SIZE_LIMIT=${BODY_SIZE_LIMIT:-100mb}

After this change:

22 MB video → works
44 MB video → works

Therefore the HTTP request-body limit was one separate issue, but it does not explain the intermittent Send Video failure.

The videos are sent to the OpenWA n8n node as Binary Data.

Video format

The video that was tested is a standard MP4:

codec: H.264
audio: AAC
pixel format: yuv420p
resolution: 480x848
framerate: 25 FPS
OpenWA Docker configuration

I'm running OpenWA using the provided Docker Compose configuration.

Relevant settings:

mem_limit: ${OPENWA_MEM_LIMIT:-2g}

• BODY_SIZE_LIMIT=${BODY_SIZE_LIMIT:-100mb}
• WEBHOOK_SSRF_PROTECT=false
• RESOLVE_LID_TO_PHONE=true

The OpenWA session remains in ready state when the failure occurs.

Question

Has anyone encountered this intermittent Send Video failure with the official OpenWA n8n node?

Specifically, I'm trying to determine whether this could be related to:

whatsapp-web.js / WhatsApp Web media sending
Puppeteer ExecutionContext.evaluate()
OpenWA session/client state despite the session reporting ready
Binary media handling in the n8n node
Multiple consecutive media sends
Some internal OpenWA media/request timeout or queue
A WhatsApp Web version compatibility issue

The failure is intermittent and can occur even on the first item of an execution, so it does not appear to be strictly related to processing a particular item.

Any suggestions for additional logs or debugging steps would be appreciated.

[rmyndharis]

Thanks for the detailed write-up, @mooshuree — the BODY_SIZE_LIMIT catch was a good find, and you are right that it was a separate issue.

One thing worth knowing about the remaining error: NodeApiError: The connection to the server was closed unexpectedly means the HTTP connection to OpenWA died before any response came back. That is not an n8n-side parsing problem — the server (or something between n8n and the server) dropped the socket mid-request, so the place to look is the OpenWA container, not the node.

Debug steps, in order of likelihood:

1. Check for an OOM kill. Your compose sets mem_limit: 2g. A 44 MB video travels as base64 in the JSON body (~59 MB), gets parsed into memory server-side, and is then handed to whatsapp-web.js, which pushes it into the Chromium page via Puppeteer — several large in-memory copies, plus Chromium itself. Right after a failure, run:

docker inspect --format "{{.State.OOMKilled}} {{.State.RestartCount}}" <openwa-container>

OOMKilled=true (or a climbing restart count) confirms it. If so, raise the limit and see whether the intermittency disappears. Intermittent + large media + a memory cap + a Puppeteer-based engine is the classic OOM pattern, and an OOM kill produces exactly the "connection closed unexpectedly" symptom.

2. Correlate with server logs. At the exact timestamp of a failed n8n execution, check the OpenWA container logs: did the send-video request arrive at all? Is there a stack trace, or does the log just stop mid-line (process death)?

3. Bypass n8n to isolate. Send the same video directly to the API:

curl -X POST http://<host>/api/sessions/<sessionId>/messages/send-video \
  -H "X-API-Key: owa_..." \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d "{\"chatId\": \"<chatId>\", \"base64\": \"<base64>\", \"mimetype\": \"video/mp4\"}"

• Fails directly too → server/engine side: open an issue in this repo with the server logs from step 2.
• Only fails via the node → node-side: open an issue at rmyndharis/OpenWA-n8n.

4. Include your OpenWA version in whatever you end up reporting — it matters a lot for anything engine-related.

My money is on #1. Let us know what the docker inspect says.