Why are WhatsApp Cloud Archiver users seeing the “Waiting for this message” alert

In some cases, the WhatsApp Cloud Archiver, which is based on web capture of WhatsApp messages, is getting a message that looks like the one below:

This “Waiting for this message” alert, can happen if: 

• The user’s app is not updated 
• The contact’s app is not updated 
• The contact’s app was closed before the inscription process was finished. 

More information about this topic appears on the WhatsApp site: https://faq.whatsapp.com/3398056720476987/ 

When a delayed message is detected, the WCA service retries to capture the message for up to 5 days and will populate the content of the message on success. 

In cases where the message was updated after the 5-day retry, the message will not be archived.

We send an alert to the user (admin and our control service) at the following times:

• 1^st alert: When retry mechanism has been non-successful for 24 hours
  
  We will wait for 24 hours since these issues usually resolves of itself within this timeframe (since one of the parties updates or reopens the mobile app)
  
  
• 2^nd alert: after 72 hours the retry mechanism is still not successful
  
  
• 3^rd alert: If after 120 hours (5 days) the retry mechanism reaches the end with a non-successful result