Checking the Telegram channels

Each training group is wired to a Telegram channel. That wiring can break quietly — the bot gets removed from a channel, or demoted, or loses permission to post — and nothing tells you until a broadcast reaches nobody.

There’s a check for that.

Running it

From any /coach/* page, open your browser’s developer console and run:

fetch('/api/admin/telegram-test').then(r => r.json()).then(console.log)

Admin only. It doesn’t post anything — it asks Telegram about each channel and reports back. Safe to run any time, including mid-season.

Reading the result

Each channel comes back with a verdict:

Verdict	Meaning	Fix
ok	Bot is an admin and can post	Nothing
unreachable	Wrong channel, deleted, or the bot was never added	Re-add the bot; re-check the channel in group settings
not_member	The bot was removed	Re-add it as an admin
not_admin	Bot is in the channel but not an admin	Promote it
cannot_post	Admin, but posting was turned off	Re-enable “Post messages” in its admin rights

It also checks the inbound webhook — whether Telegram is set up to send updates back to us. That’s what mirrors your own posts in a channel into the chat panel on family pages. It’s a separate thing from the bot being able to post, and it can break on its own:

Webhook verdict	Meaning
ok	Registered and subscribed to channel posts
not_set	No webhook at all — your channel posts won’t mirror
erroring	Registered, but Telegram’s last delivery failed
missing_channel_posts	Registered but not subscribed to channel posts (Telegram’s default excludes them)

You also get:

• groups_without_channel — training groups with no Telegram channel at all. Not necessarily wrong; just worth knowing.
• channels_with_no_families_joined — see below.

Actually sending a test post

When you want to confirm end to end, not just check permissions:

fetch('/api/admin/telegram-test', {
  method: 'POST',
  headers: { 'content-type': 'application/json' },
  body: JSON.stringify({ post: true })
}).then(r => r.json()).then(console.log)

That posts a short “connection test — you can ignore this” message to every channel. To limit it to one group, add group_id:

body: JSON.stringify({ post: true, group_id: 'grp-u16' })

These are real channels

A test post goes to families who have joined. Use the plain check first — it answers most questions without sending anything.

”Everything passed but nobody’s getting posts”

Passing all the checks means the club can post. It doesn’t mean anyone is listening.

Families have to join the channel — there’s an Open in Telegram → link on their family page. Until they tap it, they’re not in the channel and won’t get the phone notification.

They don’t lose the message, though: the family page has a chat panel that mirrors channel posts, so a family that never touches Telegram still sees everything. Joining is an upgrade, not a requirement.

channels_with_no_families_joined in the result tells you where that gap is.

Worth doing before the season

One check at the start of the season, and a real test post to one group, is enough to know the pipeline works before you depend on it.