Button and List messages do not render on consumer WhatsApp — only Carousel works (v0.7.1)

[asoftdb]

Welcome!

• Yes, I have searched for similar issues on GitHub and found none.

What did you do?

Tested every interactive send endpoint of evolution-go against a personal (non-Business) consumer WhatsApp recipient, using the Evolution GO Manager's per-instance lab modal ("Testar botões, lista e carrossel"), which constructs the official canonical payloads for each variant.

Specifically I ran:

• /send/text — plain text (control)
• /send/button — Reply × 1, Reply × 3 (server max), CTA Copy, CTA URL, CTA Call, PIX alone, CTAs grouped (copy + url + call) → 7 variants
• /send/list — single sections list → 1 variant
• /send/carousel — 4 cards REPLY, 4 cards URL, 3 cards CALL, 4 cards COPY → 4 variants

Same sender instance, same recipient phone, runs spread over ~5 minutes.

Reproduction

1. Pair an instance with a personal WhatsApp number (not Business / WABA).
2. Open the Manager → Instances page → click the "Testar botões, lista e carrossel" lab icon on the instance.
3. Enter a personal phone number (not on WABA / Cloud API).
4. Run each of the 9 button + list modes one after another.
5. Re-run with each of the 4 carousel modes.
6. Watch what the recipient phone actually displays.

What did you expect?

I expected all variants to render on the recipient's WhatsApp because:

1. The API returned 200 OK with IsFromMe: true and a real WhatsApp message ID for every single send (so the sender's session successfully emitted the frame to WhatsApp's servers).
2. The Manager UI's lab modal explicitly bills itself as a delivery test tool for these endpoints — if these payloads weren't expected to work, they shouldn't be in the lab.
3. The plain-text /send/text control delivered cleanly to the same recipient, so the device + recipient pair is healthy.

What did you observe instead of what you expected?

Only /send/carousel actually delivers usable content to consumer WhatsApp. Every /send/button variant arrives as a placeholder asking the recipient to update WhatsApp, and /send/list does not arrive at all.

Endpoint	Variant (from Manager UI lab)	API response	Receiver result
/send/text	plain text	200 OK	✅ Rendered cleanly
/send/button	Reply × 1	200 OK	❌ "Update WhatsApp…" placeholder
/send/button	Reply × 3 (server max)	200 OK	❌ "Update WhatsApp…" placeholder
/send/button	CTA Copy	200 OK	❌ "Update WhatsApp…" placeholder
/send/button	CTA URL	200 OK	❌ "Update WhatsApp…" placeholder
/send/button	CTA Call	200 OK	❌ "Update WhatsApp…" placeholder
/send/button	PIX alone	200 OK	❌ "Update WhatsApp…" placeholder
/send/button	CTAs grouped (copy + url + call)	200 OK	❌ "Update WhatsApp…" placeholder
/send/list	Single sections list	200 OK	❌ Not delivered at all
/send/carousel	4 cards REPLY + image headers	200 OK	✅ Renders, all buttons work
/send/carousel	4 cards URL	200 OK	✅ Renders (URL button serialization is its own issue, see #51)
/send/carousel	3 cards CALL	200 OK	✅ Renders
/send/carousel	4 cards COPY	200 OK	✅ Renders

In every case the API returns 200 with a real message ID — the difference is entirely on the WhatsApp client side.

If this is by design (WhatsApp restricting these frame types for unofficial-API sessions), it would help operators a lot if the README / changelog said so explicitly. Right now the lab modal happily ships these payloads as if they were expected to work for any recipient.

Screenshots/Videos

No response

Which version are you using?

evolution-go v0.7.1 (Docker)

What is your environment?

Docker

If applicable, paste the log output

No response

Additional Notes

Sender / recipient setup

• Sender: personal WhatsApp number connected via QR (not Business)
• Recipient: personal WhatsApp number on Android, current app version, not on Business / WABA / Cloud API
• evolution-go reachable on a public host
• Same sender → same recipient pair for ALL tests in the matrix

Related

• Issue [BUG] Carousel message buttons (URL, CALL, COPY_CODE) lose their parameters during serialization #51 — "Carousel Message Buttons Serialization Bug" — affects URL/CALL/COPY button params inside carousels in v0.7.1.

Questions for maintainers

1. Is the button/list non-delivery to consumer WhatsApp a known WhatsApp protocol restriction (e.g. they only accept those frame types from Business-API sessions)?
2. If yes — would you consider documenting this in the README and/or returning a warning header on the response (e.g. X-Whatsapp-Delivery-Risk: high) so callers can surface it to their users?
3. If no — is there a server log or whatsmeow debug toggle I can enable to capture the WhatsApp ack / rejection for these messages? Happy to run a follow-up test.

Thanks for the project — carousel works reliably and is genuinely useful for our use case.