A blocked or low-quality number can take weeks to recover. i-Connect watches every broadcast and every message, and stops early when something looks wrong, with the reason in plain words.
Two kinds of brake
- A broadcast pause stops a whole broadcast. It shows Paused automatically with the reason and what to do, its queued messages are held, the Owners and Admins are notified once, and it's recorded in the audit log. You decide when to resume.
- A message hold makes one message wait and try again later, by itself. Nothing for you to do, but it explains why a broadcast is taking longer.
What pauses a broadcast
| On screen | What triggered it | What to do |
|---|---|---|
| Meta paused or disabled the template | Meta paused the template for low quality or disabled it after repeated pauses, or the template was deleted. | Recipients reported or blocked it. Edit it into a new template, or wait until Meta approves it again, then resume. Resume is refused until the template is approved. |
| Your number's quality rating is low | A marketing broadcast's number dropped to a low (red) quality rating. | Sending more marketing now could get the number limited. Resume only if you've checked why people are blocking it. |
| Meta refused messages for wrong template values | More than 20 of the first 200 messages were refused because template values were missing, too long, in the wrong format, or didn't match the template. | Check the variable mapping (missing or wrong values). Resuming sends the rest as they are. |
| An unusual share of messages failed | More than 25% of the last 500 finished messages failed (once at least 100 have finished). Failures that are about the recipient, not your broadcast, don't count: Meta holding back marketing, people who turned off marketing, and numbers not on WhatsApp. | Look at the failure reasons before resuming. |
| The WhatsApp number needs attention | The number's token stopped working, Meta reported a problem with the number, or someone paused sending from it. | Fix it in Settings → WhatsApp numbers (token or permissions), then resume. Resume is refused until the number is active again. |
| Meta reported a payment problem | Meta reported a payment problem on your WhatsApp account. Template sends pause for the whole organisation. | Fix the payment method on your WhatsApp account in Meta Business Manager, then resume. |
| Sending is paused for your organisation | Meta restricted or locked your WhatsApp account. | Contact support. Resume is refused while sending is paused. |
Utility broadcasts aren't paused for a low quality rating; that brake is for marketing.
How to resume
- Open the broadcast and choose Resume. Queued messages go out from where they stopped; nobody gets a message twice.
- For the template, number, payment and account reasons, resume is refused while the cause is still there.
- For low quality, wrong template values and a failure spike, resuming overrides that brake for this broadcast only. Other brakes still apply.
Messages that wait and retry
| Hold | When | What happens |
|---|---|---|
| Send window | A marketing message outside your send window (09:00–21:00 by default). | Waits until the window opens. |
| Messaging limit | Template messages to new people once 95% of your business portfolio's limit (unique people per 24 hours) is used. | Held and retried every 15 minutes as the 24-hour window rolls. Owners and Admins are told once. Replies and messages to people already reached today continue. |
| Low quality on the number | Marketing from a number with a low (red) quality rating. | Marketing waits and is retried every 30 minutes; utility messages and replies continue. |
| Same person, short time | More than 10 messages to the same person from the same number within a minute. | Retried a few seconds later. This keeps under Meta's limit per recipient. |
| Plan limit | Your organisation has used 110% of its plan's monthly messages (once plan limits are switched on; until then nothing waits for this). | Marketing waits (re-checked hourly) until you upgrade or the month resets. |
| Meta busy | Meta answers "too many messages" or is briefly unavailable. | Retried automatically with a short back-off; sending slows down for a minute. |
Failures that aren't retried
Some answers from Meta are final for that message. The report shows them under Why messages failed:
- 131049: Meta held it back to protect the recipient's experience (too many marketing messages). Not retried in this broadcast.
- 131050: the recipient turned off marketing messages from you in WhatsApp. i-Connect records it as a marketing opt-out.
- 131026: the number isn't on WhatsApp, uses an old app, or blocked you. It's skipped after 3 such failures.
- 131047: more than 24 hours since they last wrote: only templates can be sent.
- 132000, 132001, 132005, 132012: a template value is missing, too long or in the wrong format, or the template isn't approved in that language.
The frequency cap and missing consent aren't failures: those people are counted under Left out and skipped (see Broadcasts).
Still stuck? Write to support@i-connect.world with your organisation's name and what you see on screen.