WhatsMeow Sticker Download Issue (ERR_DOWNLOAD)

[saimahendra282]

I am currently building a WhatsApp terminal client using @whatsmeow-node/whatsmeow-node.

Everything works properly for:

• images
• videos
• audio
• documents

However, sticker downloads consistently fail with the following error:

Media download failed: WhatsmeowError: Get "https://a.whatsapp.net":t
    at GoProcess.handleStdoutLine (file:///D:/watmcpp/node_modules/@)
    at Interface.<anonymous> (file:///D:/watmcpp/node_modules/@whats)
    at Interface.emit (node:events:509:28)
    at [_onLine] [as _onLine] (node:internal/readline/interface:465:)
    at [_normalWrite] [as _normalWrite] (node:internal/readline/interface:...)
    at Socket.ondata (node:internal/readline/interface:263:23)
    at Socket.emit (node:events:509:28)
    at addChunk (node:internal/streams/readable:563:12)
    at readableAddChunkPushByteMode (node:internal/streams/readable:...)
    at Readable.push (node:internal/streams/readable:394:5) {
  code: 'ERR_DOWNLOAD'
}

Current Setup

I am downloading media using:

await client.downloadAny(message);

I also tried:

• downloadMediaWithPath()
• downloadMedia()
• explicit sticker handling using message.stickerMessage

but stickers still fail while other media types download correctly.

Additional Notes

• Static and animated stickers both fail
• Videos/images/audio work perfectly
• Media opens correctly in mpv
• Error only occurs for stickers
• The issue seems related to WhatsApp CDN/media retrieval

Question

Has anyone encountered this issue before?

If there is a known fix, workaround, retry mechanism, or proper sticker download method for WhatsMeow, it would be very helpful.

Any guidance would be appreciated.