Why am I not getting a group name?#

Not having a name for a WhatsApp group can cause a number of inconveniences for both end users and integration developers.

Why there is no group name?#

When creating a WhatsApp group, either through the mobile app or the web interface, users can leave the group name blank.

If the name is not specified, the system does not assign a default value to it, leaving the field blank.

This results in missing data in some parameters used to identify the group.

How does this affect data retrieval in the API?#

Incoming notifications #

In notifications about new messages, the chatname field can be empty.
This makes it difficult to understand which group the message came from.

Notification example:

{
    "typeWebhook": "outgoingMessageReceived",
    "instanceData": {
        "idInstance": 1103860726,
        "wid": "79876543210@c.us",
        "typeInstance": "whatsapp"
    },
    "timestamp": 1729571097,
    "idMessage": "5125D25A22E6C5D3C2E441C3A98023BB",
    "senderData": {
        "chatId": "120363352639283697@g.us",
        "chatName": "",
        "sender": "79876543210@c.us",
        "senderName": "John",
        "senderContactName": "John Doe"
    },
    "messageData": {
        "typeMessage": "textMessage",
        "textMessageData": {
            "textMessage": "Hi"
        }
    }
}

Method getGroupData #

The subject field containing the group name will be empty.
This complicates automatic processing of group data.

Response body example:

{
    "groupId": "120363352639283697@g.us",
    "owner": "79876543210@c.us",
    "subject": "",
    "creation": 1729571084,
    "participants": [
        {
            "id": "79876543210@c.us",
            "isAdmin": false,
            "isSuperAdmin": false
        },
        {
            "id": "79987654321@c.us",
            "isAdmin": true,
            "isSuperAdmin": true
        },
        {
            "id": "79998765432@c.us",
            "isAdmin": false,
            "isSuperAdmin": false
        }
    ],
    "subjectTime": null,
    "groupInviteLink": ""
}

Method getContacts #

The name field, which usually contains the name of the group, will also be empty.
This makes it difficult to display the list of contacts and groups.

Response body example:

{
    "id": "120363352639283697@g.us",
    "name": "",
    "type": "group"
}

Solution#

To avoid such situations, it is recommended to always specify a group name when creating it, even if it is temporary.

You can specify the group name via API using the UpdateGroupName method