Media sending failure via WhatsApp Business API
14

Hi community, Since today, June 16, 2026, I'm experiencing failures when sending media through the WhatsApp Business API (Cloud API). The issue affects all media types (image, audio, video, and document) when using a public URL as the media source. Errors received:

HTTP 500 – Internal Server Error HTTP 502 – DNS query shed at inflight cap

The media URL is publicly accessible and loads normally in the browser, so the issue does not appear to be on our end. Has anyone else experienced this today? Could this be related to an active incident on Meta's infrastructure? Thank you.

Bruno
Asked about 3 months ago
Selected Answer
1

We also faced same error when we tried to send media messages

"{\"code\":131053,\"title\":\"Media upload error\",\"message\":\"Media upload error\",\"error_data\":{\"details\":\"Downloading media from weblink failed with http code 502, status message DNS query shed at inflight cap\"}}"

I think its working now! Not sure if its fixed or not

June 16 at 12:24 PM
Surya
2

Same problem, exactly the same 500/502's

June 16 at 10:21 AM
Sarjan
Sarjan

Incase it helps, we have our platform redirect to AWS signed URLs. Although this has worked fine before today.

June 16 at 10:23 AM
3

Same from here

June 16 at 9:32 AM
PageGear
5

Hi Bruno, Yes, we're having the same problem with some numbers; we're not getting an error response from the WhatsApp API, but the media isn't reaching the client.

June 16 at 9:29 AM
Fredy
Diego

Same here

June 16 at 9:32 AM
Bruno

Hi, thanks for the confirmation. In our case, the send request itself returns success — no error at the API call level. The failure comes back asynchronously via the message status webhook, where we receive the error indicating that Meta failed to download the media from the URL. So the flow is:

We send the media message → API returns 200 OK Shortly after, the status webhook fires with the download failure error

Are you seeing the same pattern on your end?

June 16 at 9:32 AM
Fredy

If it's the same case, there's still nothing reported by Meta, pending confirmation.

June 16 at 9:34 AM
Diego

Yes, the failure is retrieved via webhook later, the delivery on api call is correct. Definitely a Meta problem.

They usually confirm after 30 mins

June 16 at 9:41 AM
Fredy

Hi Bruno, It's working now, so please give it a try.

June 16 at 9:55 AM
Bruno

Seems like sending is intermittent right now — sent 5 audios in a row, 3 went through fine and 2 hit the same error.

June 16 at 9:59 AM