We developed a CRM to centralize our customers’ WhatsApp communication using the official Meta WhatsApp Cloud API.

For some recipients, audio messages sent through our platform result in the error:

“This audio is no longer available. Please ask to re-send it.”

Interestingly, the audio player is still rendered in WhatsApp and shows the correct total duration, but playback fails.

Audio sending pipeline

The process used to send audio messages is:

• Convert the audio file to OGG with MIME type audio/ogg

• Upload the file to Google Cloud Storage

• Send the GCS public URI to the Meta API as the audio media URL

For some users, the audio plays correctly. For others, the error above occurs, even though the same pipeline and files are used.

Observations

• We are using the official Meta WhatsApp API

• The WhatsApp Business numbers are configured using physical SIM cards

• So far, the issue seems to affect only iPhone users

• We tested a workaround suggested for iOS users (link to solution), but it did not solve the problem

Question

Has anyone encountered this issue before or knows what could cause WhatsApp to show an audio player but fail to retrieve the audio content?

Are there any known requirements or limitations regarding:

• Audio encoding parameters

• Hosting location (e.g., signed URLs, expiration, redirects)

• iOS-specific behavior in WhatsApp audio playback

Any insight on how to avoid this error would be greatly appreciated.