Whatsapp can't send media (PDF File)

[vestal escarp]

I'm experiencing a bug where the Whatsapp channel won't append/send media, specifically PDF files. It just drops it silently.

It seems to be a bug:
https://github.com/openclaw/openclaw/issues/66090
https://github.com/openclaw/openclaw/issues/46332
https://github.com/openclaw/openclaw/issues/64665

With some proposed fixes, the latter one that was merged, but didn't do anything for me:
https://github.com/openclaw/openclaw/pull/64872
https://github.com/openclaw/openclaw/pull/65577

Has anyone encountered this? is this a known bug, discussed here or somewhere else?

Looking to fix this ASAP.

Thanks

[regal ocean]

Let me check the docs and the WhatsApp code path so I can give you something concrete.

I found a couple of newer WhatsApp media fixes after 2026.4.9. I’m checking the linked issues now so I can tell you whether this is the same bug or a different one.

Yeah, this looks like a real known WhatsApp outbound media regression, not just a PDF-only thing.

What I found:

• #64394 fixed one path in v2026.4.12 (mediaUrls fallback)
• #65896 added another WhatsApp media fix in v2026.4.14
• #65966 hardened the Baileys media upload hotfix, but that only shows up in v2026.4.15-beta.1 right now

A useful clue from the code: when media is actually recognized, logs should say:

Sending message -> ... (media)

If your logs only show Sending message -> ... without (media), the media got dropped before WhatsApp send, which matches #64665 / #66090.

Also, PDFs should be supported. Current WhatsApp code maps them to a document send with preserved filename, so if PDFs vanish silently, it’s probably the outbound media pipeline, not “PDFs are unsupported”.

First thing, can you paste:

openclaw --version
openclaw status --all

Then reproduce with:

openclaw logs --follow
openclaw message send --channel whatsapp --target <number> --media /absolute/path/to/test.pdf --message "test"

My recommendation:

1. If you’re on 2026.4.9 or older, update first.
2. Try 2026.4.14 stable.
3. If it still fails and you need this fixed ASAP, test 2026.4.15-beta.1 or current source, because that latest WhatsApp media hotfix landed after 4.14.