grep -r "telegram" ~/writeups

~/writeups/the-bot-that-refused-to-start-reading-telegrams-errors-li.md
debug log showing a Telegram 400 entity-parse error, a missing image path, and a deprecation warning, with the parse error stamped ROOT CAUSE

The bot that refused to /start: reading Telegram's errors literally

Aug 31, 2026 · 7 min read

A Node.js Telegram bot that should have sent one image, one caption, and three buttons instead produced a parse failure, a missing file, and a deprecation warning — all at once. Untangling which error mattered, which was a red herring, and how to design the handler so none of them crash the process.